James Lee Burke Quote

Who can make sense of the roles we play? If I could draw any conclusion about the long, depressing slog of human progress, it’s the possibility that unseen elements lie just on the other side of the physical universe and that somehow we’re actors on the stage of the Globe, right across the Thames from a place called Pissing Alley, whether William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe are aware of our presence or not.

James Lee Burke

Who can make sense of the roles we play? If I could draw any conclusion about the long, depressing slog of human progress, it’s the possibility that unseen elements lie just on the other side of the physical universe and that somehow we’re actors on the stage of the Globe, right across the Thames from a place called Pissing Alley, whether William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe are aware of our presence or not.

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About James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke (born December 5, 1936) is an American author, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won Edgar Awards for Black Cherry Blues (1990) and Cimarron Rose (1998), and has also been presented with the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin (Heaven's Prisoners) and then Tommy Lee Jones (In the Electric Mist).
Wirt Williams, reviewing Burke's first novel, Half of Paradise (1965), in the New York Times, compared his writing to Jean-Paul Sartre and Ernest Hemingway, but concluded "Mr. Burkes' literary forebear is Thomas Hardy."
Burke's 1982 novel, Two for Texas, was made into a 1998 TV movie of the same name. Burke has also written five miscellaneous crime novels (including Two for Texas), two short-story collections, four books starring protagonist Texas attorney Billy Bob Holland, four books starring Billy Bob's cousin Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, and two books starring Weldon Avery Holland, grandson of legendary Texas lawman Hackberry Holland.