Undercover Quotes

“They'll say you are bad
or perhaps you are mad
or at least you
should stay undercover.
Your mind must be bare
if you would dare
to think you can love
more than one lover.”
― David Rovics

“The Audi tires squealed as the vehicle tracked the same path. Jake hammered down the avenue, hunting for a getaway. Traffic thickened at the juncture ahead. A green light flickered into amber. He ramped up over the limit, punching over the white lines on a red signal.
Tires screeched and a horn beeped. The needle sat on one hundred kilometers per hour. He fishtailed at a laneway. The GPS showed a right angle, car slid into a slot in an overhang. Jake got out and crept toward the opening, hugged the brick wall. He pulled the SIG and flicked off the safety.
The Audi braked at the mouth. Door slammed. A shadow fell over the concrete. The swish of clothing indicated a possible weapon draw.”
― Simon W. Clark

“Oslo probably owed them money. Sockeye Sammy’s shiner testified that it might not be a good idea to stiff his employer. But if I couldn’t pay up, I’d surely make myself scarce, too!”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“My life had turned into a Raymond Chandler detective story and there seemed to be nothing I could do to stop its precipitous slide.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“To be truthful, Mike, we’d like to kill you. The vote went two-to-one.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“I bent down and felt her neck for a pulse, as I’d seen the paramedics do with Philip.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Jolly Jay rested the Louisville Slugger on his shoulder, as if he were Thor or some other god-like warrior who had come down from the heavens to our Deus ex machina rescue.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“From inside the cooler, Duke pounded on the door one, last time: “Let me outta here!”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Just so we’re straight,” I said confidentially, staring into his lazy eyes, a stupid smile on his sophomoric, look-I-can-grow-a-mustache-now face. “I don’t like you.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Anything good in the briefcase?” he asked.
I smiled back at him. “Everything’s good in the briefcase, Walter.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“As if some kind of demon were racking his brain, Curley Joe stood in front of the jukebox with a small, silver handgun still pointed at the hole its bullet had blown through the shattered Plexiglas.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Any weapons or drugs, Mr. Hepp?” she asked.
“No. Of course not.”
She continued to look inside the car at the back seat. “What’s in the briefcase?”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Oh, we’ll see you again, Mike. Just not with the same, pretty face. I hear you’re an actor, too. Pity. Your days of wooing leading ladies are about to end.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Six months out of college and I was already questioning my occupational direction. Screenwriter? Actor? Director? Movie and television producer? What the hell was I thinking?”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“The full moon affected people. Sometimes in aberrant ways. Mix in an abundance of alcohol, a sprinkle of blow, and voilà—trouble!”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“I think the sun was just peeking over the horizon—dawn patrol, as the coca-nuts termed it—when I finally fell off to a troubled sleep.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“So before we sent his ashes up to Iceland, Duke suggested that we have a little wake for Oslo at Ur-Place. Where else?”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“I know when someone’s trying to get me in bed, babe,” she huffed, crossing her arms under her breasts. “They were acting all giggly about it, trying to buy me shots at the bar to get me drunk.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“I may be wearing a mask,
But I'm smiling if you ask!”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, Pierrot Love: When A Call From The Other Side Takes Its Own Side

“She left the doorway, the brush idly in her hand—like a grenade, waiting to go off—and sat on the arm at the far end of the couch.”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“Secrecy is strength, what people don't know they can't spoil.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“I'm so much more scared of white guys than black guys. Like an angry black guys would pull out a gun and be like 'Yo, I'm coming back with my cousins and we're gonna funck you up' and a white guy would be like just 'BANG'!”
― Jeremy Iversen, High School Confidential Secrets of an Undercover Student

“Sure, I’d thought about it—Go northeast, young man! To Cody. You know, to win her back. Like Dustin Hoffman chasing Katharine Ross in “The Graduate.” But what was the use in that?”
― Mark Barkawitz, Full Moon Saturday Night

“I remember when Elvis died. I wrote my sentiments with words of a little girl in my dear diary, "Many people wanted to see his body. They literally wanted to dig his bones out just to make sure that he was being buried. And I could not understand why. Why people could not leave him alone and let his soul rest in peace." I couldn't get it. I didn't grasp it at that time. In a head of a little girl it was hard to believe that there were mysteries to be solved. That there ruled a conspiracy theory that people thought it was odd that he was buried and the casket was never opened. They didn't believe he was dead! Oh yes. Elvis Lives! And as the world needs his songs, his words, his thoughts, his love, his light more than ever before.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, Mysterious Murder of Marilyn Monroe

“Any dictatorship takes a psychological toll on its subjects. If you are treated as an
untrustworthy person-a potential slacker, drug addict, or thief-you may begin to feel less trust worthy yourself. If you are constantly reminded of your lowly position in the social hierarchy, whether by individual managers or by a plethora of impersonal rules, you begin to accept that unfortunate status. To draw for a moment from an entirely different corner of my life, that part of me still attached to the biological sciences, there is ample
evidence that animals-rats and monkeys, for example-that are forced into a subordinate status within their social systems adapt their brain chemistry accordingly, becoming "depressed" in humanlike ways. Their behavior is anxious and withdrawn; the level of serotonin (the neurotransmitter boosted by some antidepressants) declines in their brains.
And-what is especially relevant here-they avoid fighting even in self-defense.

Humans are, of course, vastly more complicated; even in situations of extreme
subordination, we can pump up our self-esteem with thoughts of our families, our
religion, our hopes for the future. But as much as any other social animal, and more so than many, we depend for our self-image on the humans immediately around us-to the point of altering our perceptions of the world so as to fit in with theirs. My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers - the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being "reamed out" by managers - are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth.
It is hard to imagine any other function for workplace authoritarianism. Managers may
truly believe that, without their unremitting efforts, all work would quickly grind to a
halt. That is not my impression. While I encountered some cynics and plenty of people who had learned to budget their energy, I never met an actual slacker or, for that matter, a drug addict or thief. On the contrary, I was amazed and sometimes saddened by the pride people took in jobs that rewarded them so meagerly, either in wages or in recognition.

Often, in fact, these people experienced management as an obstacle to getting the job done as it should be done.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

“Ale trzeba się przebrać, by zdemaskować społeczeństwo, trzeba oszukać i zmylić, by dotrzeć do prawdy.”
― Gunther Wallraff, Ganz unten: Mit einer Dokumentation der Folgen

“Here's some advice: If you ever have to kill someone, do it alone. No buddy watching your back, no friend with the getaway car, no one swearing you were with them.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Crime Capsules: Tales of Death, Desire, and Deception

“Those undercovers are all alone out there. No gun, no badge, no backup. I'm all they have, so I give them everything I've got. You could say ... I already have.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, Crime Capsules: Tales of Death, Desire, and Deception

“This isn't on you,' he told her.
It was nothing more than wicked coincidence. UCAs got made most often by cops or prosecutors who recognized them.”
― Scott Turow, Personal Injuries

“I always assume a strange person that is chatting with me is an undercover police officer.”
― Steven Magee