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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