The Street Lawyer Quotes
"Not only do you ignore the homeless, you help put them in the streets."
"Three million dollars, and not a dime for the sick and hungry. You are miserable people."
"Life in the streets must teach one patience."
"It's amazing how little was actually said. We sat for hours just looking at each other."
"The rewards are great, at least a million bucks a year. Billing lots of hours is more important than a happy wife."
"I needed to be needed, to be stroked, to be told that someone cares."
"We had talked so little in the past few years."
"You need to be needed, to be stroked, to be told that someone cares."
"The boys in litigation think it's a good idea," he said, his voice razor-sharp in spite of his eighty years. "His family will probably sue the cops."
"Thank goodness, I almost said. Where would we be without lawsuits?"
"I thought about DeVon Hardy and his red sticks with the multicolored wires running in all directions."
"It was not the same. The work was not important, My desk was not life and death."
"If I missed it, Arthur would be upset. No one misses a meeting with Arthur."
"I finally left. The traffic was getting worse, and I was getting chatted up by people I couldn't stand."
"It was a rare opportunity to do something stupid. I'd been traumatized. I had to leave."
"In the quiet moments between guests, I sat and stared at the row of files awaiting my attention, and I was numb."
"I passed a beggar on M Street, and wondered if he knew DeVon Hardy."
"I was naive to think I could simply shrug it off and bounce back as if nothing had happened."
"The clinic occupied half of a three-story red-brick Victorian mansion that had seen better days."
"The work was not important, My desk was not life and death."
"It was busy and dusty and I was fascinated with the place."
"It makes you crazy. Plus, he had a bone to pick."
"It's when you work for the good of society without making a lot of money."
"In Proverbs it says, 'Happy is the man who feeds the poor.' That keeps me going."
"Let's see how well you cook," he said with a smile.
"Noodles?" Mordecai asked, in mock disbelief. "In your soup?"
"Hard to get a table; how many times had I heard that from friends in Georgetown?"
"The homeless he loved were more than victims; they were his people."
"Depends. You get a couple of hundred people like this in one room, something usually happens."
"You guys'll have it made, won't you? You'll be a partner in a big firm, she'll be a surgeon. Another American dream."
"The things they don't teach you in law school," I said, taking the child.
"That's justice, Michael, that's what street law is all about. Dignity."
"I'm very sorry, Michael," he said, much sadder now.
"The world was shutting down. Nothing made sense."
"Only a fool would jump away from the gravy train I was riding."
"I was almost rude to those who wanted to chat about the hostage crisis and its aftershocks."
"Through sheer willpower, I kept my game face and got through it, billing heavily as I went."
"You don't do it for the money. You do it for your soul."
"The things and possessions I longed for would become fading memories."
"We couldn't even muster enough rancor to have a decent fight."
"I found myself thinking of Chance and the eviction file. He had a soft look, with pale skin, delicate features, a fragile manner."
"The music stopped, the doors opened, the stampede began."
"We shared the same city; they were a part of our society."
"Work is therapy, even salvation at Drake & Sweeney."
"I was about to be divorced, and single, and homeless myself."
"The erosion of the marriage had been slow, but certain."
"Things were moving much too fast, but I was unable to stop them."
"There was no way to know that a drug bust had gone bad, a cop had been shot, a Jaguar owned by a dealer was speeding down Eighteenth Street."
"I'm okay, I said, sitting on the edge of a stretcher. There was a racket behind me, but I couldn't turn around."
"She left before dawn. A sweet note on the table told me that she had to make her rounds, and that she would return mid-morning."
"Had I not been involved, the story would have been an everyday shootout between cops and crack dealers, ignored and unread by me."
"I kept saying, 'I'm okay, I'm okay,' as they checked my blood pressure."
"I awoke sometime in the night. Claire was sleeping in a chair next to my bed."
"An air bag is a small bomb. The impact stuns the face and chest."
"We seemed perfectly normal and happy, a cute couple devoted to each other."
"To be in that part of town after dark was to ask for trouble."
"And so my once promising career at Drake & Sweeney sputtered to an end."
"At the age of thirty-two, I was freed from the shackles of corporate servitude, and the money."
"There's more to being a lawyer than billing hours and making money."
"There are tens of thousands of people in this city who are clinging to their roofs; one missed paycheck, one unexpected hospital visit, one unseen emergency, and they lose their housing."
"About half of the people have some type of substance abuse problem, like your pal DeVon Hardy. It's very common."
"Remember, Michael, everybody has to be somewhere. These people have no alternatives. If you're hungry, you beg for food. If you're tired, then you sleep wherever you can find a spot. If you're homeless, you have to live somewhere."
"He's guilty because the city council, in its brilliance, has made it a crime to be homeless."
"It costs twenty-five percent more per day to keep a person in jail than to provide shelter, food, transportation, and counseling services."
"New York, richest city in the world, can't house its people, so they sleep on the streets and panhandle on Fifth Avenue."
"I learned to smile, and make them feel welcome. Some apologized for not being able to pay me. Money was not important, I told them. Money was not important."
"The law is a higher calling. It's more than making money."
"If you reach the point where it doesn't hurt, then it's time to quit."
"It's much more fun to pilfer through the private things of others. You had a chance, boys, and you blew it. Now you'll have to pay the consequences."
"Life could conspire to knock down just about anyone."
"I was rapidly learning that one of the challenges of being a street lawyer was to be able to listen."
"By Thanksgiving I would be officially single again."
"I didn't want the boys to be able to plot and scheme. No time for wires either."
"The arrest warrant usually follows the search warrant."
"You're playing, Michael, and this is not a game. You're gonna get yourself hurt."
"I'm not in a position to make deals. I'm just a lowly associate."
"His victims, after all, were only a bunch of homeless squatters."
"I gave myself fifty-fifty odds of being arrested within the week."
"I parked next to some tennis courts, and began a tour of the various units."
"The cars crammed into the parking lots were of the midsized commuter variety, mostly clean and with all four hubcaps."
"I removed my wallet. 'How many bedrooms?' I asked."
"All drawers, cabinets, and closets were bare; all carpets and padding ripped up and gone."
"The night manager was a student eating a sandwich, a physics textbook opened before him."
"I stopped at the door, and asked, 'Did Palma leave a forwarding address?'"
"The first office was closed. I trudged along a sidewalk in search of another."
"The smell of fresh paint escaped through the door before I went inside."
"He lied, and he did so with the hope that he could doctor the file and somehow survive."
"Ruby sat on the edge of my brown folding client's chair, her entire upper body wrapped around the cup of coffee."
"They slept in cars, squatted in empty buildings, slept under bridges in warm weather, and retreated to the shelters when it was cold."
"She did whatever it took to keep Terrence fed, in decent clothes, and in school."
"She became pregnant, and when the child was born the city took it immediately."
"If I were collecting money, or had some other unpleasant mission, then the neighbors would naturally be defensive. I thought this was a nifty little ruse."
"At the age of thirty-two, I was ill-prepared for the single life."
"The marriage was over, plain and simple. For whatever reason."
"She could go to hell for all I cared. She was done, dismissed, forgotten."
"I carried with me two things, regardless of what I was doing. One was a cell phone, with which to call Mordecai as soon as I was arrested. The other was a folded stack of bills—twenty hundred-dollar bills—to use to make bail and hopefully spring myself before I got near the holding cell."
"The homeless are close to the streets, to the pavement, the curbs and gutters, the concrete, the litter, the sewer lids and fire hydrants and wastebaskets and bus stops and storefronts."
"Strictly in physical terms, I was paying a price for my journey from the tower to the street."
"They move slowly over familiar terrain, day after day, stopping to talk to each other because time means little."
"I had beer and pizza and watched college basketball, alone in my loft and not unhappy."