Best Kept Secrets Quotes
"It wasn’t so much the cockroach that made her scream as the chipped fingernail."
"She wanted to leave them stupefied, speechless, and defenseless."
"By the time Alex’s job was done, she was certain Purcell would capture newspaper headlines from El Paso to Texarkana."
"The activity looked so innocent. For a moment, Alex regretted her mission and what its outcome would most likely mean for the community."
"If you want to interrogate me, Counselor, you’ll have to subpoena me to appear before the grand jury."
"Justice was not served. Buddy Hicks was innocent. He took the blame for somebody else’s crime."
"The law was the profession Merle had chosen for her, but thankfully it was a field that intrigued and delighted Alex."
"I’ll bring the real killer to trial, and when I do, I’ll get a conviction. See if I don’t."
"You’re damn right I do, Counselor. Damn right I do."
"It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it."
"I told him I preferred pale little bastards any day of the week over bullies like Reede Lambert."
"Mother cried herself sick. Dad cussed himself into a frenzy."
"The first time I saw Celina in the hall at school, she took my breath, she was so pretty."
"I’ve had a great idea, Alex. Why don’t you stay for supper?"
"I’ve won and lost more fortunes than you are years old, young lady."
"Everybody would get his fair share, starting with the major investors."
"If we get that license to build this track, the town of Purcell will explode."
"You bat those big baby blues of yours at him, tell him you made a mistake."
"As strongly as you believe in your racetrack, I believe that my mother’s murder case was mishandled."
"I knew I could depend on you to get that girl out here."
"I can’t go on with the rest of it until the case is resolved to my satisfaction."
"You’ve had a jolt. Are you going to be okay?"
"Who had he gone to? Alex wondered. Where and when had the unsatisfactory lovemaking taken place? Had it been before or after he’d come to her motel room? Why hadn’t it been any good?"
"Life imprisonment," she said tightly, "if the forensic report implicated you as her murderer."
"Some things, however, were black and white. Chief among them was the law."
"Because of your mama, because I like you, and mainly, because we’ve got nothing to hide."
"But if this little lady has her way, she’ll bust us. Yeah, you might have to go out and get a job for once in your life."
"Well, I wasn’t willing to let you become a highway statistic in my county," he shouted.
"That kiss sure as hell intrigues you, doesn’t it, Counselor?"
"I don’t want to see gambling come to Purcell, do you? Aren’t you against this device of the devil that snatches food from children’s mouths, destroys marriages, and plunges the weak onto paths bound for hell and damnation?"
"But you’re still a suspect. It wouldn’t do for us to be seen fraternizing."
"I like that word. It sounds dirty, incestuous."
"Say you’ll go tonight. I’ll pick you up at seven."
"During the course of the evening I’ll have a drink or two, possibly more."
"You’d be shirking your duty if you didn’t take advantage of every opportunity to rout out the truth."
"What the hell does a rock have to do with the fire?"
"You haven’t learned that it’s best to let the dead remain dead."
"You enjoy causing dissonance. Your mother was never content to leave bothersome things alone."
"The world might be better off if people openly expressed what they were feeling."
"Emotions were to her what a bottle of liquor is to a drunkard. She overindulged, and had no control over exhibiting her feelings."
"I don’t give in that easily. And I’m not ashamed that my parents had to get married."
"I’ve got my pride, but I’m a practical businessman. I face facts, bad as they sometimes are."
"You can do a lot of damage in that amount of time."
"I don’t make veiled threats. I told you to your face to get your ass back to Austin."
"From the back you’d be taken for twins, except that your hair is darker and has more red in it."
"You always did an honest day’s work for anything I sent your way."
"We were playing games with each other, childish, foolish, silly, boy-girl games."
"He expects so goddamn much out of himself, he imposes the same standards on everybody else."
"His essence lingered on each surface like a fine coating of dust."
"It was never quite the same between the three of us after we got back from El Paso."
"Nobody even knew Celina was pregnant until that night."
"I scooped her up, ran outside, and put her in my car."
"I thought you only had a gash on the head and some scratches on your hands?"
"I'm not joking. She almost got killed this afternoon."
"I'm afraid we're extremely vulnerable to prosecution."
"We could both be grown up about this… if you were a grown-up to start with."
"You're asking me to play the role my mother was cast for. You rejected her."
"I had to question the witnesses about that shooting."
"It's my head that mountains are being slammed against, Mr. Chastain. Why are you whining?"
"Why? Knowing won’t change a damn thing. It won’t bring Celina back. It won’t alter your unhappy childhood or mine. Will it make your grandmother love you? No."
"Celina, like every other human being ever to grace this earth, did what she damn well pleased when she damned well felt like it, with or without motivation."
"For crissake, she didn’t even want you, Alex. No more than my mother wanted me."
"I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. It’s just that you’re so goddamn aggravating when it comes to this."
"Is that why you made it happen, hoping that I’d forgive and forget?"
"You’re dead set on pissing me off, aren’t you?"
"When a person does something wrong, he’s got to be punished."
"What’s the punishment for a prosecutor sleeping with a suspect?"
"What are we supposed to tell people when they drop by to see you?"
"He has a tough time showing affection, and an even tougher time of accepting it."
"I might not even have minded him having Celina, so long as he set her up out of town and away from Junior."
"I’m not sure he could have made it those first few months if Stacey hadn’t taken such good care of him."
"I think I would remember slashing Celina to ribbons."
"As old as he is, he’s still bitter about his mama up and leaving him when he was a baby."
"I wanted her more than ever. I think I justified it to myself because I figured she deserved no better than lust from a horny old man like me."