The Priest: Would they ever harm an innocent person for any reason? [of Rocco, who's holding him at gunpoint] Paul Smecker: No, they would never do that. Well, the two Irish guys wouldn't, the Italian guy, he might, he's kind of an idiot.
Paul Smecker: Oh, isn't that beautiful? All the lowlifes in quiet city Boston start dropping dead and *you* think it's unrelated! Greenly, the day I want the Boston Police to do my thinking for me, I will have a fucking tag on my toe!
Paul Smecker: Now, you Irish cops are perking up. That's two sound theories in one day, neither of which deal with abnormally sized men. Kind of makes me feel like Riverdancing. [He proceeds to riverdance]
Detective Dolly: So what's the symbology there? Paul Smecker: Symbology? Now that Duffy has relinquished his "King Bonehead" crown, I see we have an heir to the throne! I'm sure the word you were looking for was "symbolism." What is the ssss-himbolis...
We've all been sick; we're all afraid of infection. I think the easiest application to help people understand what quorum sensing is and why it's important to study is to tell them that if we could make the bacteria either deaf or mute, we could crea...
The days when the words 'Hollywood actor' framed Ronald Reagan like bunny fingers as an ID tag and an implied insult seem far-off and quaint: nearly everybody in politics - candidate, consultant, pundit, and Tea Party crowd extra alike - is an actor ...
I've been offered political shows before, and I don't know anything about politics and I feel uncomfortable making political opinions - there's consequences to them. I often think I'm wrong, so I really don't like getting in political or religious di...
I was devastated when I got the review for my first book. The book came out a couple years before the women's movement broke through, and people were putting it down, asking, 'Why does the woman in this book need to get a divorce? Why can't she just ...
Like a lot of people, I've often wondered what else I might have been. When I was younger, but even after I was a child, I thought Batman was the whole package. Smart, calculating, pragmatic. Depressed, but in a way women found hot. Tragic at his cor...
The Abbe Paul looked at Agnes rather as Alain had, with respect. 'How sensible. People are desperate to probe mysteries which for the most part are best left unprobed. It is the modern curse: this demented drive to explain every blessed thing. Not ev...
Americans love to hear good things about their bad habits.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," says Paul. And we are most in line with the Spirit, most faithfully obedient, when instead of trying to manipulate people into faith, we simply live in that freedom and let the Spirit do the work of...
If you are trying to get information across to someone, your ability to create a compelling introduction may be the most important single factor in the later success of your mission.
I'm not a model; hence I don't see the reason to have a six-pack abs. I can pull off a tough and rugged look of a cop in 'Dhoom' series without taking my shirt off. Cops don't have to move around without a shirt to flaunt their machismo. What makes t...
Everyone has attitude, and I think everyone should have attitude. But I know I have attitude, but that's just, I think if you don't have attitude, it comes only with self confidence. So if you don't have self confidence, you won't have attitude, and ...
Coming up in the Bay Area and being African American in a city that has a history of complex issues of violent crime, interaction with the police is always intense. That's something you have to learn. My mom taught me at a young age that if ever a co...
Give up pride for good during the holidays. This is where I've been especially stubborn. As I walk more and more in this path of Christianity, I see that letting my guard down and admitting that I don't want to be alone is far better than dealing wit...
'Envy the Night' was my first stand alone, the first book I'd written in the third person and I loved the feel of that, and it was different but it was also the same. 'So Cold the River,' I knew, was going to be really different, and that's why I tho...
The TiVo is really an amazing machine. Like everyone who has one, I totally recommend it. Just as everyone who's married will tell you to get married, and everyone who has a baby tells you to have a baby, everyone who owns a TiVo will tell you to get...
There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know somethi...
People who have babies tell me I will know a love that is beyond anything I can imagine, and a joy that is indescribable. Love and joy? That sounds horrifying. I have no way of knowing whether I can handle either of those. I'm much better with need a...