Quotes from Lee Child

No," Burke said. "Thank God." So

Then Chang fired. Full auto. Nine hundred rounds a minute. Impossibly fast. A brief blur of sound, like a manic sewing machine. Two seconds. A whole mag. Dirt stitched up in a line and a splinter of wood blew off the building.

Face it. The pathology meter was twitching.

first you live, and then you die. It's not an outrage. It's something that's been happening since the dawn of time. It has to happen, don't you see? If people didn't die, the world would be an awfully crowded place by now.

wrestling with the brawler's

He won't come here. We'll have to go to San Francisco." "Like it's still 1967." "What?" Reacher said, "Nothing.

Better to hit her now. She thinks her job is done. She's coming down off a high. Her adrenaline is low. She'll be braver in the morning." Bishop

You can still do that here? Deputize people?

She tinged her attitude with a gentle mocking humor which saved people from hating her.

Five minutes to three in the afternoon. Exactly sixty-one hours before it happened. The lawyer drove in and parked in the empty lot. There was an inch of new snow on the ground, so he spent a minute fumbling in the foot well until his overshoes were secure. Then he got out and turned his collar up and walked to the visitors' entrance. There was a bitter wind out of the north. It was thick with fat lazy flakes. There was a storm sixty miles away. The radio had been full of it. The

But because Lowrey's stories were usually very long. He fancied himself a raconteur. And he liked background. And context. Deep background, and deep context.

the coffee was burnt and stewed.

he would choose them if they weren't? "They know Holly pretty well," he said. "They're good enough." "Moaners and groaners?

Waiting is a skill, just like everything else. ~Jack Reacher

Legal language strives for concision and avoids ambiguity wherever possible. The result is inevitably dull, but all that striving and avoiding really teaches a person how to write.

all talking in a tense and agitated fashion, like a scene in a movie where folks find out the mining company has poisoned their water.

I know they're true." "Because?" "Human nature," he said. "You know how it is. Whatever your intentions, if you have the ability to do something, then you will do it, sooner or later. The temptation is always there, and it can't be resisted forever. Don't tell me you think any different.

door wide open. Patty pointed. Shorty said, "It's for cleaning your ears. Or drying them. Maybe both. They have two ends. I've seen them in the drugstore." "Why is it there?" "Someone missed the trash can. Maybe it bounced off the rim, and rolled out of sight. Happens all the time. The maids don't care." She said, "Go back to your lawn chair, Shorty." He did.

To be afraid of a survivable thing was irrational.

He always had been.

OK," I said. "Forget the whole thing." "Really?" "Orders are orders," I said. "The alternative is anarchy and chaos.

These are promises as solemn as government debt.

was a meticulous guy, right?

Bramall told a joke about a lawyer who died and got to the pearly gates. Not fair, he said. I'm only forty-five. Saint Pete said no, we got a new system. Now we do it by billable hours. According to our records you're 153.