“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.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“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.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“he was keeping track of time. It was nearly two hours since he had last looked at his watch, but he knew what time it was to within about twenty seconds. It was an old skill, born of many long wakeful nights on active service. When you're waiting for something to happen, you close your body down like a beach house in winter and you let your mind lock onto the steady pace of the passing seconds. It's like suspended animation. It saves energy and it lifts the responsibility for your heartbeat away from your unconscious brain and passes it on to some kind of a hidden clock. Makes a huge black space for thinking in. But it keeps you just awake enough to be reach for whatever you need to be ready for. And it means you always know what time it is.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“He had learned a long time ago that some things were worth being afraid of. And some things were not. Things that he had done before and survived did not justify fear. To be afraid of a survivable thing was irrational.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“Webster lapsed into silence. Started thinking hard. He was a smart enough bureaucrat to know if you can't beat them, you join them. You force yourself to think like they think.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“The second simultaneous thing Reacher was doing was playing around with a little mental arithmetic. He was multiplying big numbers in his head. He was thirty-seven years and eight months old, just about to the day. Thirty-seven multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five was thirteen thousand five hundred and five. Plus twelve days for twelve leap years was thirteen thousand five hundred and seventeen. Eight months counting from his birthday in October forward to this date in June was two hundred and forty-three days. Total of thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty days since he was born. Thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty days, thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty nights. He was trying to place this particular night somewhere on that endless scale. In terms of how bad it was. Truth was, it wasn’t the best night he had ever passed, but it was a long way from being the worst. A very long way.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“So he died, because for a split-second he got brave. But not then. He died much later, after the split-second of bravery had faded into long hours of wretched gasping fear, and after the long hours of fear had exploded into long minutes of insane screaming panic.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“learned a long time ago that some things were worth being afraid of. And some things were not. Things that he had done before and survived did not justify fear. To be afraid of a survivable thing was irrational.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“He had learned a long time ago that some things were worth being afraid of. And some things were not. Things that he had done before and survived did not justify fear. To be afraid of a survivable thing was irrational. And”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“the loud diesel roaring died into the mountain silence.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“just because of her connections. That had nothing to do with it. Holly was Holly. And if layer number three was what McGrath wanted,”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“It happened before,’ Ray said. ‘It happened in 1776. People said enough is enough. They said we want a better country than this. Now we’re saying it again. We’re saying we want our country back. And we’re going to get it back. Because now we’re acting together. There were a dozen militias up here. They all wanted the same things. But they were all acting alone. Beau’s mission was to put people together. Now we’re unified and we’re going to take our country back. We’re starting here. We’re starting now.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“To be afraid of a survivable thing was irrational.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“My people don’t need any encouraging. They don’t need much leading. They need guidance, and they need discipline, but don’t let that fool you. I’m not coercing anybody. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating their will. Don’t ignore their desire for a change for the better.”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
“squirmed under the pressure. The leader squatted down and sorted through the”
― Lee Child, quote from Die Trying
Lee Child
Born place: The United Kingdom
See more on GoodReads
“It was only when the salt water of my tears ran into my cuts and made them sting
that I discovered I was crying.”
― Marian Keyes, quote from Anybody Out There?
“Apocalypse is a frame of mind." [Nicodemus] said then. "A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Death Masks
“But don't blame me for the food. My wife knows a hundred and one ways to incinerate a cow, and as far as I can tell she's still experimenting.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from The Last Letter from Your Lover
“Le anime hanno un loro particolar modo d'intendersi, d'entrare in intimità, fino a darsi del tu, mentre le nostre persone sono tuttavia impacciate nel commercio delle parole comuni, nella schiavitù delle esigenze sociali. Han bisogni lor proprii e le loro proprie aspirazioni le anime, di cui il corpo non si dà per inteso, quando veda l'impossibilità di soddisfarli e di tradurle in atto. E ogni qualvolta due che comunichino fra loro così, con le anime soltanto, si trovano soli in qualche luogo, provano un turbamento angoscioso e quasi una repulsione violenta d'ogni minimo contatto materiale, una sofferenza che li allontana, e che cessa subito, non appena un terzo intervenga. Allora, passata l'angoscia, le due anime sollevate si ricercano e tornano a sorridersi da lontano.”
― Luigi Pirandello, quote from The Late Mattia Pascal
“I don’t run for trains.” Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking. You stand above the rat race and the pecking order, not outside of it, if you do so by choice.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, quote from The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Sweet Ruin
The Aeronaut's Windl...
All the Rage
Five Weeks in a Ball...
Hatching Twitter: A...
Escaping PerilBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
