Quotes by Thomas Vincent

“When they are dark, they have need of Christ to enlighten them; when they are dead, to quicken them; when they are straitened,21 to enlarge them; when they are weak, to strengthen them; when they are sad, to comfort them; when they are tempted, to succor them; when they are fallen, to raise them; when they are in doubts, to resolve them; when they are under fears, to encourage them; when they stagger, to establish them; when they wander, to restore them. Christ, and none but Christ, can do all this, and more than this, for them. And therefore, because of the need and usefulness of Christ, true Christians love Him.””

“Doyle was puzzled by the instructions and by the fact that they carried no signature. He looked again at the label. It had been typed on the standard office machine of the radio department. This also puzzled him. He turned toward the door, intending to ask Rogers for a comment. Rogers had disappeared. Doyle shrugged and turned back to the heater. For a moment he toyed with the heater, then plugged it into the workbench’s double-outlet plug. He flicked the switch on the outlet plug. The resulting explosion broke windows in the workshop, and shook the main police headquarters building over two hundred feet away. It was a miracle that Doyle escaped death. His left hand, left leg, and right foot were smashed. His left eardrum was fractured. He was rushed to Bayonne Hospital, where he underwent an emergency operation. The next day Rogers visited Vincent Doyle in the hospital, and asked through his tears: “How can I get the guy who did this to you?” Two weeks later Rogers was charged with the attempted murder of Vincent Doyle.””

“News of the verdicts brought a marked change in Rogers. He became almost obsessive in his desire to discuss the fire on the Morro Castle. Increasingly, he dwelt on how the blaze had been set. Doyle began to keep a record of his assistant’s statements. Finally, he noted: “George knows that I know he set fire to the Morro Castle.” Doyle decided to wait. He knew that what Rogers had told him was not strong enough to obtain a conviction. If questioned, Rogers could always escape by pleading idle boasting, something his police colleagues knew he was capable of. Vincent Doyle told no one of his suspicions. But he continued to question Rogers on every aspect of the Morro Castle disaster, and began to form a picture of Rogers which was remarkably in tune with later psychiatric reports. The strange cat-and-mouse questioning went on until early March 1938. Then, on March 3, a quiet Thursday afternoon, Doyle and Rogers sat down for yet another discussion on the peculiar fate of the Morro Castle. At the end of it Doyle knew “exactly how Rogers set the fire. He told me how to construct an incendiary fountain pen; how it had been placed in the writing-room locker’.” Doyle wondered how best to present his sensational evidence to his superiors. He was still worrying over it next afternoon when he met Rogers outside the police radio department. Rogers seemed pensive and withdrawn. “There’s a package for you,” said Rogers. Doyle nodded and went into the department. Rogers remained just outside the doorway. On the workbench was a package. Doyle unwrapped it and found a heater for a fish tank. There was nothing unusual in that; from time to time Doyle used the department’s facilities to repair electrical equipment for his colleagues. Attached to the fish tank was a typed label: This is a fish-tank heater. Please install the switch in the line cord and see if the unit will work. It should get slightly warm.””

“In June 1936, George White Rogers joined the Bayonne police force. He was assigned as assistant to Vincent Doyle in the radio department.””

“The three volumes on the case compiled by Police Captain Vincent Doyle and exhaustive investigations by Captain Wilmott’s lifelong friend Captain George Seeth provide further evidence. As far as is known, Doyle and Seeth never met. Neither was even aware of the other’s existence. Yet, somewhat astonishingly, both came to the conclusion that Rogers poisoned Captain Wilmott as a deliberate act of retaliation.””

“Para algunos, no puede haber amor verdadero sin la muerte; tal es el tema romántico por excelencia, el de Tristán e Isolda, el de Romeo y Julieta, el de Filemón y Baucis, el de los amantes de Mayerling.””

“El encarnizamiento de los hombres por conquistar una parcela de poder (financiero, político) no se explica únicamente por la búsqueda del -confort- o la fascinación del prestigio, sino más bien por la necesidad imperiosa de -acumular vida-, por lo tanto de alejar la muerte.””

“Silenciar la muerte es muy mala estrategia, pues nada más angustiante que lo desconocido, o que lo reprimido cuando se despierta.””

“Esta práctica de quemar a los brujos, aún en el Occidente cristiano, es una supervivencia del miedo al espíritu de los muertos, que se encuentra en las religiones primitivas, donde el fuego se destinaba a suprimir el cuerpo y al fantasma del brujo.””

“Hence the title of your new book”

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Thomas Edison””