Quotes from C.J. Box

Twilight in the mountains brought a special kind of cold. It crept out from the darkness of the lodgepole pine forest where it had spent the daylight hours and it slithered across the top of the snow to sting every inch of exposed human skin. Sounds became sharper and the snow itself became a different texture that squeaked like nails on a chalkboard with every footfall.

I know Edmond Locard's Principle, the central theory of modern forensic crime-scene investigation: something is always left behind.

I wish you had.

Joe nodded. "We're required to report bullet wounds.

I'll tell anyone who will listen," he said softly. "What I can't figure out is why everybody doesn't do it. Look for the best, I mean. It's easy, and it makes life go easier.

Hypothermia was curling back its lips and exposing its sharp teeth.

Every place in West, it seemed, was always for sale.

Cassie once overheard a well-known mystery writer pontificate from his corner bar stool in Missoula, attempting to woo a young female grad student. The author, who looked like a cross between a buffalo and a walrus, said, "In Missoula if you throw a stick you'll hit a goddam writer. I wish more people would throw sticks.

So it was a two ear confession. Those are the best kind you know. The most reliable.

there is no sound in nature that makes men move along faster than the pumping of a shotgun. Except maybe a chainsaw

Her nightmares came from what she saw and experienced when the door had opened to reveal evil and violence that until that trip had been closed to her. Now she knew what some people—despite their manner and packaging—were capable of. It still shook her to her core.

sometimes we see things in animals that aren't really there. It's called transference, if that makes any sense. ...I think there are a lot of people who say they do things for animals when they're really doing it for themselves. They see things in animals that might not really be there. I think sometimes that hurts the animals in the end, and it hurts other people, too. ...There are people on both sides of the issue who think animals are more valuable than people are...

there is no sound in nature that makes men move along faster than the pumping of a shotgun.

It's not like our laws are moral codes—they're just a set of rules dreamed up by politicians to keep themselves in power and placate their contributors.

Are you on the scene?

In reality, the source of all these differences is, that the savage lives within himself, while the social man lives constantly outside himself, and only knows how to live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the consciousness of his own existence merely from the judgment of others concerning him. —JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

And I'll want to ride ahead from time to time to make sure we don't get into a situation where we get rim-rocked." "Rim-rocked?" she asked. "It means riding or climbing up into rocks and boulders but not being able to get back down," he said.

swear if I get home I'll go to church," Britney promised. "I don't know which church yet. It needs to be spiritual, and healing, and forgiving. And without a lot of that religious baggage so many churches seem to have nowadays." Joe's

widening gyre

trophy hunters,

For the next few minutes, time stood still and Cassie was transported into a real-life version of hell. Even as she watched it, she knew she'd never be able to scrub the images from her mind for the rest of her life. She had to remind herself to breathe.

so they 'donate' them

It came in horrible flashes, and Cassie found herself fast-forwarding, getting the gist but not dwelling a second longer than necessary on the actual details.

the tendency to go native if you stay somewhere too long.