Quotes from Persuader

“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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“Yeah, well…No, I mean sex in my truck. Sex with a man I just met. Sex in a freaking parking lot.”

He grinned. ”That’s a lot of firsts.”
― Laura Kaye, quote from One Night with a Hero

“The future is never more important than to a people on the verge of a cataclysm.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, quote from The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn

“Muffled footsteps sounded in the distance. Goldie heard a shout, and the heavy clank of punishment chains. The footsteps came closer. A boy began to sing in a hoarse, adolescent voice. "Awa-a-a-y, across the ocean-a-an, awa-a-a-y, across the sea-a-a-a-."

There was a slap, and a yell. The singing stopped, but only for a moment. When it started up again, there were a dozen or more voices, all caterwauling at the top of their lungs. "-I'll go-o-o-o where my heart takes me, where my-y-y-y love waits for me-e-e-e-e."

A pause. A furious adult's voice said, "It's not your love that's waiting for you, you little villains, it's the House of Repentance! Deliberate destruction of property, putting the lives of others at risk, oh you're in for it, you are!"

Clank clank clank, went the punishment chains. "I’ve be-e-e-e-en away so long, dear, I've tra-a-a-aveled far and wi-i-i-i-i-ide-" sang the voices.

Goldie edged along the wall and eased the door open. There was a bustle and a shoving and a clanking, and suddenly the corridor in front of her was full of boys, milling backward and forward, rattling their chains and singing loudly. They were all older than Goldie, but they wore the same gray threadbare smock and leggings. Somewhere in the middle of them were two Blessed Guardians. The smell of burning hung over them all.

There was no time to think. Goldie couldn't see Toadspit, but she was sure he must be there somewhere. She whispered a quick "thank you" to Bald Thoke, then she stepped out into the corridor and tucked herself between two of the boys.

For a heart-stopping moment the song faltered. The boys on either side of Goldie shot incredulous glances at her-

Then they closed smoothly around her and began to sing louder than ever, their voices bouncing off the high ceilings. "Three yea-a-a-a-ars I rowed the galley-y-y-ys, three year-a-a-a-ars I was a sla-a-a-a-ave-."

They spilled out into the foyer, a laughing, shouting, singing rabble. The Guardians who led them were shouting too. Only Goldie was silent. She crouched between the tall, raucous boys, her smock blending with theirs, her pulse thundering in her ears.

"What's this?" shouted the toad-like Guardian. "Where are you taking them at this time of night?"

"Set fire to their beds?" shouted one of the other Guardians. "Don't know what's got into them! Marching them off to Repentance!"

"I'll need their names!"

"If I-I-I-I-I could turn back time, dea-a-a-a-ar, if I-I-I-I-I-I could start aga-a-a-a-a-in-"

"For Great Wooden's sake, we'll give them to you when we come back. I can't bear this appalling racket a moment longer!"

And with that, the boys, Goldie and the two Guardians spilled out the front door of Care, across the yard and through the gate.”
― Lian Tanner, quote from Museum of Thieves

“Careful lads," said the beetle at the front. "She's dangerous all right. Look at that changeable expression."
"I'm not dangerous," I told them.
"Dangerous. Not dangerous. Same thing," said the beetle.
"And what I say," said the next beetle along, "is, it's the dangerous ones you have to watch out for.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask

“I'll see you soon," he whispered, the lump in his throat rising again to jar the release of his sigh. He swallowed once more and said, "But it won't be soon enough.”
― Laury Falter, quote from Reckoning

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