Quotes from Lee Child

shopping trolleys

You could have been killed." Reacher nodded. "Many times," he said. "But all long ago. Not today. Not by these guys." "You're crazy." "Or competent.

Hope for the best.' 'But plan for the worst.

Reacher glanced back. The guy on the right was about to transition from unconscious to concussed. The guy on the left was squirming halfheartedly and pawing at everything between his ribcage and his knees.

We drove under a giant gray wing and headed out over open blacktop straight for a small white airplane standing alone. A corporate thing. A business jet. A Lear, or a Gulfstream, or whatever rich people buy these days. The paint winked in the sun. There was no writing on it, apart from a tail number. No name, no logo. Just white paint. Its engines were turning slowly, and its stairs were down.

What would the army tell you to do? Fire armor-piercing rounds in sufficient quantity to subdue resistance. And then fire tracer rounds at the gas tank in sufficient quantity to subdue evidence.

Chang said, "I don't understand how you drink so much coffee." "Law of gravity," Reacher said. "If you tip it up, it comes right out. You can't help but drink it.

The M1A1 Abrams is like a shark, evolved to a point of absolute perfection. It is the undisputed king of the jungle. No other tank on earth can even begin to damage it. It is wrapped in armor made out of a depleted uranium core sandwiched between rolled steel plate. The armor is dense and impregnable.

I thought justice ground real slow in Texas." "Only if you plead not guilty.

The grounds had an iron fence set in a stone knee wall, which was just wide enough for a small person to sit on, and Turner was a small person, and Reacher was used to being uncomfortable.

When we found it you said the number would be either the client, or a source of independent corroboration, or a source of further information.

The guy said, "If you'd taken that punch on the upper arm, you'd expect one hell of a bruise. Which is exactly what you got. Not on the outside. Not enough flesh. The bruise is on the inside. On your brain. With a twin across the hall, because your brain bounced from side to side in your skull like a goldfish in a test tube. What we call coup and contre-coup.

Then finally he opened the wrong door, and what came out at him was his problem, not mine.

They're trying to carve gaps in society that are too big to bridge.

What was your guy's name?" "Archibald," I said. "That's the kind of name you don't hear often." "Lowland Scottish," I said. "Via Old French and Old High German. The third Earl of Douglas was called Archibald the Grim. No such romance in my case. My guy was called Archibald the worthless piece of shit.

Details. Evidence gathering. Surveillance. It's the basis of everything. You've got to settle down and watch long enough and hard enough to get what you need.

You know who Nicolaus Copernicus is?" "Was," Walker said. "Some old astronomer. Polish, I think. Proved the earth goes around the sun." Reacher nodded. "And much more than that, by implication. He asked us all to consider how likely is it that we're at the absolute center of things? What are the odds? That what we're seeing is somehow exceptional? The very best or the very worst? It's an important philosophical point.

He drew back the string an extra inch. The arrowhead moved backward, the same inch, toward his hand, clenched tight around the grip. The bow curved harder. It sang with tension.

The whole point of drifting was happy passive acceptance of no alternatives. Having alternatives ruined it.

The edge of the world crept into view, at least to the straining wide-open eyes, limned and outlined in gray on gray, infinitely dim, infinitely subtle, hardly there at all, part imagination, and part hope. Then pale gold fingers probed the gray, moving, ethereal, as if deciding. And then spreading, igniting some thin and distant layer one molecule at a time, one lumen, lighting it up slowly, turning it luminous and transparent, the glass of the bowl, not white and cold, but tinted warmer.

They're scientists at heart, and scientists generally retain a good-faith interest in facts and the truth. Or at least they retain some kind of innate curiosity. All of which was good, because this guy's attitude was going to be crucial. He could stay out of our way, or he could sell us out with a single phone call.

The doctor smiled briefly and balanced the bar across his palms again. "It's handsome, in its way," he said. "Does that sound strange?" I knew what he meant. It was a nice piece of steel, and it was everything it needed to be and nothing it didn't. Like a Colt Detective Special, or a K-bar, or a cockroach.

Why aren't you working?" Finlay asked. I shrugged. Tried to explain. "Because I don't want to work," I said. "I worked thirteen years, got me nowhere. I feel like I tried it their way, and to hell with them. Now I'm going to try it my way.

A whole bunch of things happened. Moynahan and the Cadillac driver spun around and around, trying to see it all. Trying to stay eyes-on. First the right-hand helicopter pounced ahead on a wide track to the east, sliding in again behind the town and heading due south, full speed, which was pretty damn fast.