Quotes from Lee Child

There are only two real people in fiction – the storyteller and the listener

Life is endlessly capable of surprises, so he knew one day he would come face to face with his physical equal. With somebody who might worry him. But he looked and saw this wasn't the day. So he just smiled and looked away again.

fiction started up, and we started burning brain cells on stories about things that didn't happen to people who didn't exist. Why? The only answer can be that humans deeply, deeply desired it.

I felt like a man who wakes alone on a deserted island to find that the rest of the world has stolen away in boats in the night. I felt like I was standing on a shore, watching small receding shapes on the horizon. I felt like I had been speaking English, and now I realized everyone else had been speaking a different language entirely. The world was changing. And I didn't want it to.

Street-fighting's first rule: there are no rules.

But you think it because you don't trust your colleagues. Not all of them. You don't believe in them. Which leaves you isolated. It's all down to you. But the army is different. Whatever else is wrong with it, you can trust your brother soldiers. And believe in them.

He had crashed through the barrier. He had stopped worrying and started relaxing. He was up on that plateau where you just did whatever needed doing. I knew that place. I lived there.

Jack Reacher ordered espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man's life change forever.

I may be an old guy, but the truth is old guys remember stuff real well. Not recent things, you understand, but old things. You got to imagine your memory is like an old bucket, you know? Once it's filled up with old stuff there ain't no way to get new stuff in. No way at all, you understand? So I don't remember any new stuff because my old bucket is all filled up with old stuff that happened way back.

She said, "You say no one ever is sure what to expect. On either side. Which is a good thing. It means the game goes to the fastest thinker. That's all I need to be." "Correct," I said. "Weird things are going to happen, and things are going to change, and the ground is going to move under our feet, but if we keep on thinking fast, we'll be OK.

SAWs were not metal things with little teeth, good for cutting wood. SAWs were Squad Automatic Weapons, which were fearsome fully-automatic machine guns, with fearsome capacities and fearsome capabilities.

I checked my appearance, to make sure I was fit for public consumption.

He said all that needs to happen for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.

The smart money brings a gun to a knife fight. Reacher brought a hydrogen bomb.

Look, don't see, listen, don't hear. The more you engage, the longer you survive.

Any day could be the last of life or liberty, so small pleasures were always worth pursuing.

below the glass would be the weak spot. Plywood, probably, maybe three-eighths thick, painted, retained in the frame by quarter-round moldings. Reacher was wearing shoes he had bought in the London airport two deployments ago, stout British things with welts and toecaps as hard as steel.

Neagley hated physical contact. No one knew why. But it was a recognized issue.

Don't underestimate the attraction of your ass, Roscoe, whatever you do.

Handguns were in-room weapons. Under expert control in high-pressure situations the average range for a successful engagement was about eleven feet.

He's worth having. All I got was two fake lawsuits." "Seems like Morgan's value just went down, as part of a credible

There are a lot of them, all around the wsorld, all built a lifetime ago, during the long and spectacular blaze of American military power and self-confidence, when there was nothing we couldn't or wouldn't do. I was a product of that era, but not a part of it. I was nostalgic for something I had never experienced.

So I got desperate. I was really panicking. Then I got this idea. I figured if I looked at people hitching rides, I might find somebody. One of them might turn out to be the right type of person, and willing to help me. I tried to choose pretty carefully. I only stopped for rough-looking men.

Reacher liked New York more than most places. He liked the casual indifference of it all and the frantic hustle and the total anonymity.