“People who say "no" right away are usually lying. A truthful person is perfectly capable of saying "no" but generally they stop and think about it first. And they add "sorry" or something like that. Maybe they come out with some questions of their own. It's human nature. They say, "Sorry, no, why, what happened?”
Source: Persuader
“10. “I always wanted to be in the world of entertainment. I just love the idea of an audience being happy with what I am doing. Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That’s how I see it.”
“I always wanted to be in the world of entertainment. I just love the idea of an audience being happy with what I am doing. Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That’s how I see it.”
—Lee Child”
“Waiting is a skill like anything else.”
Source: Killing Floor
“The first thing I said was, “Long lunch.” Which was supposed to be just a descriptive comment, but she took it as more. She said, “Jealous?”
“Depends what you ate. I had a cheeseburger.”
“Resolute, responsible, determined, knowledgeable, and perceptive”
Source: A Wanted Man
“Foreign, for sure. But we all bleed the same color red. No doubt about that. The truth of that statement was plain to see. Reacher put the guy out of misery. A single shot, close range, behind the ear. An unnecessary round expended, but good manners had a price”
Source: A Wanted Man
“It’s always fifty-fifty, Pete. Like tossing a coin. Either I’m wrong, or I’m right, either you bring us back, or you don’t, either Deputy Chiefs are what they say they are, or they’re not. Always fifty-fifty. One thing or the other is always true.”
Source: Never Go Back
“There are four types of people who join the military. For some, it's a family trade. Others are patriots, eager to serve. Next, you have those who just need a job. Than there's the kind who want a legal means of killing other people.”
“As a general rule. it's a comfort issue, literally and metaphorically. And intimacy issue. It's a big step, putting on foreign underwear. Like betrayal, or emigration.”
Source: A Wanted Man
“The most unbearable type of anger is a woman’s; do anything to avoid it” - Jack’s Rules”
Source: Three Jack Reacher Novellas: Deep Down, Second Son, High Heat, and Jack Reacher's Rules
“The plane was on descent. Reacher could feel it in his ears. And he could feel abrupt turns. The pilot was military, so he was using the rudder. Civilian pilots avoid using the rudder. Using the rudder makes the plane slew, like a car skids. Passengers don't like the feeling. So civilian pilots turn by juicing the engines on one side and backing off on the others. Then the plane comes around smoothly. But military pilots don't care about their passengers' comfort. It's not like they've bought tickets.”
Source: Running Blind
“Writing is show business for shy people.”
“I have spent my entire career trying to please the reader; I’m not a master, I’m the servant.”
“Inside it was cool again. Everything was white and chrome. Lights were fluorescent. It looked like a bank or an insurance office. There was carpet. A desk sergeant stood behind a long reception counter. The way the place looked, he should have said: how may I help you, sir? But he said nothing. He just looked at me. Behind him was a huge open-plan space. A dark-haired woman in uniform was sitting at a wide, low desk. She had been doing paperwork on a keyboard. Now she was looking at me. I stood there, an officer on each elbow. Stevenson was backed up against the reception counter. His shotgun was pointed at me. Baker stood there, looking at me. The desk sergeant and the woman in uniform were looking at me. I looked back at them.”
Source: Killing Floor
“What don't you need to do?" she asked him. ... "You don't need to solve all the world's problems, Joe. Only some of them. There are enough to go around." ... "You've got the strength of two normal boys," she said. Then came my own personal question.
"What are you going to do with this strength?" she asked me. I didn't answer. I never did. "You're going to do the right thing," she said.”
Source: The Enemy
“It was the Die Trying promotion tour, and I wasn't mugged. In fact, I mugged the other guy. Promotion tours are hard work, but the compensation is freebie visits to places you might not otherwise go, so I always make a habit, when the day is done, of taking a stroll, usually about midnight. I was in San Francisco, so figured I'd go look at the Tenderloin part of town, which is rough. This guy stepped out and basically said, "Give me your money." ... I was amazed how quickly I snapped back through almost 40 years and suddenly became that tough city kid again. I got right in the guy's face and told him he had to give me his money or I'd break his arms. Just a purely instinctive reaction from long ago. Never back down. Never show fear. He only had five bucks. I gave it to the next homeless person I saw.”
“You were trained to play a game, and you're not even good enough to do that. I was trained to kill people, and I was the best at it.”
“if you can’t acquaint an opponent with reason, you must acquaint his head with the sidewalk.”
Source: Never Go Back
“In Reacher's experience new Suburbans were driven by uptight assholes. But old models were plain, utilitarian vehicles often driven by plain, utilitarian people.”
Source: Nothing to Lose
“Like when people say they slept like a baby. Do they mean they slept well? Or do they mean they woke up every ten minutes, screaming?”
Source: Killing Floor
“Many years from now when your children ask what New York City was like just after 9/11, this will be the book you give them in response. It's an exquisite novel full of heart, soul, passion and intelligence, and it's the one this great New York author was born to write.”
“It's a kind of zen question: if you write a book and no one reads it, is it really a book?”
“Intensely vivid characters, terrible crimes, and a brutal deep-frozen landscape all prove beyond a reasonable doubt that cold nurtures good and evil as readily as heat ... and that Giles Blunt is a really tremendous crime novelist.”
“Printing currency for foreigners to buy is the best racket a government can get into.”
Source: Killing Floor: A Jack Reacher Novel
“The most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.”
“Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.”
“Sometimes if you want to know for sure whether the stove is hot, the only way to find out is to touch it.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 2, 6-Book Bundle: 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, Personal
“They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August. They tried to kill him in September. It was way too soon. They weren't ready. The attempt was a failure. It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle. Because nobody noticed.”
Source: Echo Burning: A Jack Reacher Novel
“You do not mess with the special investigators.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 1, 7-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow
“This was like July 13th, 1943, the pivotal day of the Battle of the Kursk. We were like Alexander Vasilevsky, the Soviet general. If we attacked now, this minute, we had to keep on and on attacking until the enemy was run off his feet and the war was won. If we bogged down or paused for breath even for a second, we would be overrun again.”
“Reacher said, "So here's the thing Brett. Either you take your hand off my chest, or I'll take it off your wrist.”
“He picked up the wrench and broke the guy’s wrist with it, one, and then the other wrist, two, and turned back and did the same to the guy who had held the hammer, three, four. The two men were somebody’s weapons, consciously deployed, and no soldier left an enemy’s abandoned ordnance on the field in working order. The doctor’s wife was watching from the cabin door, all kinds of terror in her face. "What?" Reacher asked her.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 2, 6-Book Bundle: 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, Personal
“To fill a small bag means selecting,and choosing, and evaluating. There's no logicial end to that process. Pretty soon I would have a big bag, and then two or three. A month later I'd be like the rest of you.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 2, 6-Book Bundle: 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, Personal
“I'm not afraid of death. Death's afraid of me.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 2, 6-Book Bundle: 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, Personal
“I had a teacher once, grade school somewhere. Philippines, I think, because she always wore a big white hat. So it was somewhere hot. I was always twice the size of the other kids, and she used to say to me: count to ten before you get mad, Reacher. And I've counted way past ten on this one. Way past.”
Source: Die Trying: A Jack Reacher Novel
“People, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a man or a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got. His response was their problem. But dogs were different. No free will. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.”
Source: Die Trying: A Jack Reacher Novel
“I know I'm smarter than an armadillo”
Source: Lee Child's Jack Reacher
“I'm not a vagrant... I'm a hobo. Big difference.”
“I'm a rich man. To have everything you need is the definition of affluence.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher 11-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow, 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man
“I have to warn you. I promised my mother, a long time ago. She said I had to give folks a chance to walk away.”
“No, I'm a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don't, I don't.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher 11-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow, 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man
“A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 1, 7-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow
“I was in the machine. My whole life. Then the machine coughed and spat me out. So I thought, OK, if I'm out, I'm out. All the way out. I was a little angry and it was probably an immature reaction. But I got used to it.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 1, 7-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow
“I went to college. West Point is technically a college.”
“Slippery slope. I carry a spare shirt, pretty soon I'm carrying spare pants. Then I'd need a suitcase. Next thing I know, I've got a house and a car and a savings plan and I'm filling out all kinds of forms.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 1, 7-Book Bundle: Persuader, The Enemy, One Shot, The Hard Way, Bad Luck and Trouble, Nothing to Lose, Gone Tomorrow
“Now they broke my toothbrush, I don't own anything.”
Source: Bad Luck and Trouble: A Jack Reacher Novel
“Lone women shouldn't stop in the middle of nowhere for giant unkempt strangers with duct tape on their faces.”
Source: The Essential Jack Reacher, Volume 2, 6-Book Bundle: 61 Hours, Worth Dying For, The Affair, A Wanted Man, Never Go Back, Personal
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”
Source: Personal (with bonus short story Not a Drill): A Jack Reacher Novel
“Never forget a Favor, Never forgive a Slight!”
