William Kent Krueger Quotes & Sayings

Heavenly Father, for the blessings of this food and these friends and our families, we thank you. In Jesus's name, amen. — William Kent Krueger

That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word. — William Kent Krueger

If we put everything in God's hands, maybe we don't have to be afraid anymore. — William Kent Krueger

down. He realized he hadn't taken a single sip. — William Kent Krueger

I won't try to argue you out of this pit you've climbed into, Cork. — William Kent Krueger

Michael Koryta isn't just one of the finest authors working in the crime genre today. He's simply one of today's finest authors, period. His stories are taut, compelling, and beautifully rendered. His understanding of human nature-the good, the evil, and all the gray between-is masterful. THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is Koryta at his best. — William Kent Krueger

Oh the secrets of the night. — William Kent Krueger

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful graces of God. — William Kent Krueger

What life gives us, good or bad, we seldom deserve. — William Kent Krueger

The dead are never far from us. They're in our hearts and on our minds and in the end all that separates us from them is a single breath, one final puff of air. — William Kent Krueger

Straight is my path. Straight is my mind. Straight is my heart. Straight is my speech. Kind will I be to my brothers and sisters. Kind will I be to beast and bird. — William Kent Krueger

I need some-" Cork thought a moment. "I was going to say advice, but the truth is, I need some guidance, Tom."
"We all do sometimes. It's not always easy to admit. — William Kent Krueger

The things that ask the most of us are the things most worth having. — William Kent Krueger

Funerals weren't just about the dead. They were about the dead leaving this world to reside with God, someone Mother wasn't seeing eye to eye with at the moment, if she ever had, and I couldn't shake the concern that in the middle of the service she would spring from her pew and find some way to spite him. — William Kent Krueger

Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them. — William Kent Krueger

My mother heated Campbell's tomato soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches with Velveeta and we ate dinner and afterward watched Have Gun - Will Travel. — William Kent Krueger

I'll tell you what I think defines greatness. The ability and willingness to perform in extraordinary ways. — William Kent Krueger

t on the roads we walk we walk alone. Which is never true. Even this man who is unknown to us was known to God and God was his constant companion. God never promised us an easy life. He never promised that we wouldn't suffer, that we wouldn't feel despair and loneliness and confusion and desperation. What he did promise was that in our suffering we would never be alone. And though we may sometimes make ourselves blind and deaf to his presence he is beside us and around us and within us always. We are never separated from his love. page 71 — William Kent Krueger

It seems to me that when you look back at a life - yours or another's - what you see is a path that weaves into and out of deep shadow. So much is lost. What we use to construct the past is what has remained in the open, a hodgepodge of fleeting glimpses. Our histories, like my father's current body, are structures built of toothpicks. So what I recall of that last summer in New Bremen is a construct of both what stands in the light and what I imagine in the dark where I cannot see. — William Kent Krueger

Readers anticipate that a significant element of every story will be additional exposure to the ways of the Ojibwe. The truth is that I enjoy this aspect of the work. Although I have no Indian blood running through my veins, in college I prepared to be a cultural anthropologist, so exploring other cultures is exciting to me. — William Kent Krueger

Antimacassars and pot holders. There were games with prizes — William Kent Krueger

History. And from history came community. And community was something that spread out beyond itself, resulting in towns and nations. But it all began with family. — William Kent Krueger

I thought if you loved someone you were supposed to, like, forgive them. I thought that was what love was supposed to be all about."
Cork shook his head: "Easy to say, harder to do. — William Kent Krueger

In every human being, there are two wolves constantly fighting. One is fear, and the other is love. When Cork had asked which of the wolves won the battle, Meloux's answer had been: The one you feed. Always the one you feed. — William Kent Krueger

All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota, sliced into pieces by a thousand tons of steel speeding across the prairie toward South Dakota. His name was Bobby Cole. He was a sweet-looking kid and by that I mean he had eyes that seemed full of dreaming and he wore a half smile as if he was just about to understand something you'd spent an hour trying to explain. I should have known him better, been a better friend. He lived not far from my house and we were the same age. But he was two years behind me in school and might have been held back even more except for the kindness of certain teachers. He was a small kid, a simple child, no match at all for the diesel-fed drive of a Union Pacific locomotive. It — William Kent Krueger

'Ordinary Grace' freed me. I don't have to write only Cork O'Connor novels now. I'm liberated. I can write whatever I want to write. — William Kent Krueger

Loss, once it's become a certainty, is like a rock you hold in your hand. It has weight and dimension and texture. It's solid and can be assessed and dealt with. You can use it to beat yourself or you can throw it away. — William Kent Krueger

Why would I be angry? Because they believe a thing does not make it so. There is no dignity in anger. But I am also not a kicked dog. — William Kent Krueger

The miracle is this: that you will rise in the morning and be able to see again the startling beauty of the day. — William Kent Krueger

I used to ask for an easy life, now I ask to be strong. — William Kent Krueger

What is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time. Better, I think, to wish for her wisdom, a virtue not so fickle. — William Kent Krueger

wouldn't talk to you." Cork — William Kent Krueger

And what I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. — William Kent Krueger

Cork, promise me something." "What?" "You won't do anything that'll get you hurt." "I'm not what you'd call a brave man," he assured her. She sighed, her breath making the hair at the back of his neck shiver. "Maybe not, but you're stubborn, and that's just as bad." After — William Kent Krueger

The head and the heart, you know, they don't always see eye to eye. — William Kent Krueger

leaning hard into the wind in order to complete the job expected of him. He was an Eagle — William Kent Krueger

The truth is that when you kill a man it doesn't matter if he's your enemy and if he's trying to kill you. That moment of his death will eat at you for the rest of your life. It'll dig into bone so deep inside you that not even the hand of God is going to be able to pull it out, I don't care how much you pray. And you multiply that feeling by several years and too many doomed engagements and more horror, Frankie, than you can possibly imagine. And the utter senselessness and the total hopelessness become your enemy as much as any man pointing a rifle at you. — William Kent Krueger

When you're a writer, you're always looking for conflict. It's conflict that drives great stories. — William Kent Krueger

I watched the storm as I might have watched the approach and passing of a fierce and beautiful animal. The — William Kent Krueger

Somebody tells you they drink because they're a failure, it ain't so. They're a failure because they drink. And they drink because it's so damn hard not to. But as long as they have a bottle that isn't empty, they never feel far from being happy.
("Bums") — William Kent Krueger

You stuff your own closet full of skeletons and you wonder what kind of bones everyone else has stuffed away. — William Kent Krueger

Few things were so sure and simple that they could be taken at face value. — William Kent Krueger

It was time for Cork to return to the bed in the guest room. But he lingered beside this son who trusted him lay awake knowing there were monsters in the wind outside, that his son's fear was not unjustified, and that Stevie would have to face them alone someday. There were people out there so cruel they would wound him for the pleasure of it, dreadful circumstances no man in his worst imaginings could conjure, disappointments so overwhelming they could crush his dreams like eggshells. For a child like Stevie, a child of special graces, there would be such pain that Cork nearly wept in anticipation of it. Against those monsters, a father was powerless. But again the simple terrors of the night, he would do his best. — William Kent Krueger

She was used to dealing with worry by sinking herself completely into the facts of a situation. Her strength lay in her ability to scrutinize circumstances from every angle and to anticipate the moves of an opponent. But she didn't have facts and she didn't know her opponent, and all she was left with was the worry. — William Kent Krueger

I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. Take — William Kent Krueger

I've come to understand that there's a good deal of value in the ritual accompanying death. It's hard to say good- bye and almost impossible to accomplish this alone and ritual is the railing we hold to, all of us together, that keeps us upright and connected until the worst is past. — William Kent Krueger

You are the light. The darkness will always try to snuff you out. — William Kent Krueger

If it was true, as Henry Meloux said, that he'd heard the Windigo call his name, he understood why now. Because it felt exactly as if his heart had just been torn out of him and devoured. — William Kent Krueger

I think that whether we acknowledge it or not, our opinions as authors always influence our work. How can they not? — William Kent Krueger

Me, I was growing up scrambling for meaning and I was full of confusion and fear. — William Kent Krueger

I was a sinner. I knew that without a doubt. But I was not alone. And the night was the accomplice of us all. — William Kent Krueger

Eddie now?" Larson asked. "Maybe she waited until — William Kent Krueger

Fishing, Danny boy, is purely a state of mind. Some men, when they are fishing, are after fish. Me, I'm after things you could never set a barbed hook in. — William Kent Krueger

I don't know any real billionaires. — William Kent Krueger

God never promised us an easy life. He never promised that we wouldn't suffer, that we wouldn't feel despair and loneliness and confusion and desperation. What he did promise was that in our suffering we would never be alone. And though we may sometimes make ourselves blind and deaf to his presence he is beside us and around us and within us always. We are never separated from his love. And he promised us something else, the most important promise of all. That there would be surcease. That there would be an end to our pain and our suffering and our loneliness, that we would be with him and know him, and this would be heaven. — William Kent Krueger

Grief doesn't come in the moment of loss. It comes in the quiet of the aftermath. — William Kent Krueger

Although I'd had no trouble looking at the casket the day before, on that Saturday I did my best to keep my eyes averted. I stared instead at the stained-glass window behind the altar and imagined shooting the panes out with a slingshot. — William Kent Krueger

Returning to the Brandt home but I agreed to give a hand. We arrived after lunch and found Lise at work loading a wheelbarrow with the smaller stones from the huge pile beside the shed. The flower bed itself was in the middle of the yard, positioned in a sunny area between deep pools of shade that lay beneath a couple of tall hackberry trees. — William Kent Krueger

I generally played a little fast and loose with my resources but I figured hell, a man's reach should exceed his grasp, especially in a stupid board game. — William Kent Krueger

Write because you love the work, not because of what might come from it. The journey is the purpose. Very Zen-like, I know, but honest to God it's the truth. And I have never had to deal with writer's block. Knock on wood. — William Kent Krueger

Today. Not a long walk but a real one. Stephen thinks he'll — William Kent Krueger

At the heart of most things that look bad is something that can be good and useful. — William Kent Krueger

I will tell you what's left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love,. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he's given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may feel ourselves unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who chooses to discard them. — William Kent Krueger

There was no point in looking again. He [Cork] knew that. No point except to feed the coldness inside him. In a strange way, that was exactly what he wanted now. He wanted to feed himself to the cold until the cold had consumed him and he didn't care anymore. — William Kent Krueger

And what is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time. — William Kent Krueger

He was no stranger to brutal death. Both as sheriff and as a cop on Chicago's south side, he'd seen his share of dying. Murder, accident, overdose - it happened in many ways, but the end was the same. Something sad and confusing left behind. Only the shape of life, only the empty outline. — William Kent Krueger

They're never far from us, you know." "Who?" I asked. "The dead. No more'n a breath. You let that last one go and you're with them again. — William Kent Krueger

Haven't you seen that part of me as well? A man's many things. To isolate one part of him and judge him on that alone is to do him an injustice, don't you think? — William Kent Krueger

Nicole Baart has written a novel that satisfies on every level. Sleeping In Eden is a compelling mystery, a tragic love story, a perceptive consideration of the callous whim of circumstance and, perhaps most important, a beautiful piece of prose. I guarantee this is a book that will haunt you long after you've turned the last page. — William Kent Krueger

Sam's Place had never felt so empty. He suspected the emptiness was not in the old Quonset hut; it was in him. There was nothing in him now, nothing but the great emptiness of death, which he seemed to carry with him like a virus. — William Kent Krueger

Word is you heard the Windigo too."
I did. The difference is I'm ready for the son of a bitch."
Cork O'Connor — William Kent Krueger

God makes His presence known in many ways. In acts of love, in selfless acts of courage, in everyday human compassion. — William Kent Krueger

She hung up and the room was a fist of silence. page 233 — William Kent Krueger

Bobby had a secret. You know what it was? It took nothing to make him happy. That was it. He held happiness in his hand easy as if he'd just, I don't know, plucked a blade of grass form the ground. And all he did his whole short life was offer that happiness to anybody who'd smile at him. That's all he wanted form me. From you. From anybody. A smile. — William Kent Krueger