Quotes from Lee Child

Casey Nice said, "Jesus Christ." "I don't think so," I said. "No beard. No sandals.

Fatherhood. Always unlikely. Like winning the Nobel Prize, or playing in the World Series. Not for him.

We crossed the Avenue Bosquet against the light and then we made an arbitrary left into the Rue Jean Nicot. Joe stopped at a tabac and bought cigarettes. I would have smiled if I had been able to. The street was named after the guy who discovered nicotine.

The daylight was sliced thinner and thinner until it disappeared completely, leaving us with nothing but the dim glow of electric bulbs, in fixtures slung from the rafters high above our heads.

An under-window HVAC unit could be opened up, and nine times out of ten there was a plastic pocket expressly designed to hold paperwork, often an instruction manual or a warranty card, among which an enterprising person could conceal dozens of pages.

I could tell you, but then I'd have to bill you.

The line between Hope and Despair was exactly that: a line, in the road

The first sheet was an analysis of the problems that Armored was facing. The integrated units, the loss of prestige. The possibility of ceding command to others. It was gloomy, but it was conventional. And it was accurate, according to the Chief of Staff.

His shoes were bench-made by a company called Cheaney, from Northampton in England. Smarter buys than Church's, which were basically the same shoes but with a premium tag for the name. The style Reacher had chosen was called Tenterden, which was a brown semi-brogue made of heavy pebbled leather.

and hot raw wood. There was a guy behind a counter, in worn blue overalls stained black with dirt. He was

My country, right or wrong. Which means nothing, unless you admit your country is wrong sometimes. Loving a country that was right all the time would be common sense, not patriotism.

I know now, like drumbeats. Portentous, and a little sinister, like tympani strikes at the start of a gloomy symphony. Shostakovich, maybe.

and watched the truck squeal away, each tire insisting the other three were wrong.

Reacher] knew people with houses. He had talked to them, with the same kind of detached interest he would talk to a person who kept snakes as pets or entered ballroom dancing competitions.

an average infantryman records one enemy fatality for every fifteen thousand combat rounds expended.

103 and the even more basic 2 and 515. So, 1030. A thousand and thirty. A mistake. Maybe. Or, maybe not a mistake. Reacher took fifty dollars from the machine and dug in his pocket for change and went in

There was a toilet in the far corner, with nothing in it except basic facilities and about a trillion bacteria. It was like a huge three-dimensional petri dish.

in search of a pay phone.   He found a phone inside the bus depot. He dialed his bank's number from memory. Nine-forty in the West, twelve-forty in the East. Lunch time in Virginia, but someone should be there.

No jokes, no banter. No pre-mission

Reacher said, What have we missed ? Ratcliffe said, A piece of the puzzle. What do you know about computers ? I saw one once.

That kid was every kind of bully. He had a grudge against anyone with one brain cell more. Which was a lot

The woman led us into a living room. A decent-sized space. Expensive furniture and rugs. A big TV. No stereo, no books. It all looked a bit halfhearted. Like somebody had spent twenty minutes with a catalog and ten thousand dollars.

in LA she would hole up. Back in the day it had been part of his job to find people, and he had been pretty good at it. Success depended on

and heaved himself up and out. He stood in the cold clear air for a second and then turned and pushed the door shut again behind him. Held still for a second longer. Then he stepped forward and leaned against the side of the hood up near the headlight.