Quotes from Persuader

Lee Child ·  496 pages

Rating: (51.4K votes)


“I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“Nothing ever works like you predict it. All plans fall apart as soon as the first shot is fired.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“Ninety percent of asking questions is about listening to answers.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“Now you had one come back, Harley.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader



“I don’t really care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“Revising objectives is smart because it stops you throwing good money after bad.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“any structure that has a ranking system tempts you to try to climb it.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. He thought JFK had said it. I thought it was actually Friedrich Nietzsche, and he said destroy, not kill. What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“I fought to stay awake and keep the car on the road. And I thought back to texts I had read from the British Army in India, during the Raj, at the height of their empire. Young subalterns trapped in junior ranks had their own mess. They would dine together in splendid dress uniforms and talk about their chances of promotion. But they had none, unless a superior officer died. Dead men's shoes was the rule. So they would raise their crystal glasses of fine French wine and toast "bloody wars and dread diseases" because a casualty further up the chain of command was their only way to get ahead. Brutal, but that's how it's always been, in the military.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader



“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?”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“Being ex-military is like being a lapsed Catholic. Even though they’re way in the back of your mind, the old rituals still exert a powerful pull.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“key. I need to move up into Duke’s job. Then I’ll be top boy on Beck’s side. Then I’ll”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“OK,’ Duffy said. ‘So what have we got?’ We had rugs. The door rattled upward and daylight”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“fifty feet above the rocks. The wind”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader



“bradawl. It was just a blunt steel spike set into a handle.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


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About the author

Lee Child
Born place: The United Kingdom
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“I was dying, of course, but then we all are. Every day, in perfect increments, I was dying of loss.
The only help for my condition, then as now, is that I refused to let go of what I loved. I wrote everything down, at first in choppy fragments; a sentence here, a few words there, it was the most I could handle at the time. Later I wrote more, my grief muffled but not eased by the passage of time.
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“My darling Julie, I know you'll never see this letter, but it helps to write to you every day. It keeps you close to me. G-d, I miss you so. You haunt every hour of my life. I wish I'd never met you. No-I don't mean that! What good would my life be without my memories of you to make me smile.

I keep wondering if you're happy. I want you to be. I want you to have a glorious life. That's why I couldn't say the things I knew you wanted to hear when we were together. I was afraid if I did, you'd wait for me for years. I knew you wanted me to say I loved you. Not saying that to you was the only unselfish thing I did in Colorado, and I now I regret even that.

I love you, Julie. Christ, I love you so much. I'd give up all my life to have one year with you. Six months. Three. Anything.

You stole my heart in just a few days, darling, but you gave me your heart, too. I know you did- I could see it in your eyes every time you looked at me.

I don't regret the loss of my freedom any more or rage at the injustice of the years I spent in prison. Now, my only regret is that I can't have you. You're young, and I know you'll forget about me quickly and go on with your own life. That's exactly what you should do. It's what you must do. I want you to do that, Julie.

That's such a lousy lie. What I really want is to see you again, to hold you in my arms, to make love to you over and over again until I've filled you so completely that there's no room left inside of you for anyone but me, ever. I never thought of sexual intercourse as 'making love' until you. You never knew that.

....

I wish I had time to write you a better letter or that I'd kept one of the others I've written so I could send that instead. They were all much more coherent than this one. I won't send another letter to you, so don't watch for one. Letters will make us both hope and dream, and if I don't stop doing that, I will die of wanting you.

Before I go--I see from the newspapers that Costner has a new movie coming out in the States. If you dare to start fantasizing over Kevin after you see it, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.

I love you, Julie. I loved in Colorado. I love you here, where I am. I will always love you. Everywhere. Always.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect


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