Quotes from The Cuckoo's Calling

Robert Galbraith ·  455 pages

Rating: (375.2K votes)


“How easy it was to capitalize on a person’s own bent for self-destruction; how simple to nudge them into non-being, then to stand back and shrug and agree that it had been the inevitable result of a chaotic, catastrophic life.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“When you are young, and beautiful, you can be very cruel.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“Humans often assumed symmetry and equality where none existed.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“He had never been able to understand the assumption of intimacy fans felt with those they had never met.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling



“It's that wounded-poet crap, that soul-pain shit, that too-much-of-a-tortured-genius-to-wash bollocks. Brush your teeth, you little bastard. You're not fucking Byron.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“Strike was used to playing archaeologist among the ruins of people’s traumatised memories;”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“In the inverted food chain of fame, it was the big beasts who were stalked and hunted”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“Seven and a half million hearts were beating in close proximity in this heaving old city, and many, after all, would be aching far worse than his.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“There’s people who’d expect you to take a bullet for them and they don’t bother rememb’ring yuh name.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling



“Ridiculous," he said breathlessly. "You ought to give up detecting and try fantasy writing.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“Couples tended to be of roughly equivalent personal attractiveness, though of course factors such as money often seemed to secure a partner of significantly better looks than oneself.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“In spite of her plainness that would have made wallflowers of other women, she radiated a great sense of self-importance.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“She wuz depressed. Yeah, she wuz on stuff for it. Like me. Sometimes it jus' takes you over. It's an illness," she said, although she made the words sound like "it's uh nillness."

Nillness, thought Strike, for a second distracted. He had slept badly. Nillness, that was where Lula Landry had gone, and where all of them, he and Rochelle included, were headed. Sometimes illness turned slowly to nillness, as was happening to Bristow's mother... sometimes nillness rose to meet you out of nowhere, like a concrete road slamming your skull apart.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“it was weird. Would you believe it if some supermodel called you up and told you she was your sister?’

Strike thought of his own bizarre family history.

‘Probably,’ he said.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling



“But the lies she told were woven into the fabric of her being, her life; so that to live with her and love her was to become slowly enmeshed by them, to wrestle her for the truth, to struggle to maintain foothold on reality.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“Sense entered into a short, violent skirmish with instinct and inclination, and was overwhelmed.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“Other people his age had houses and washing machines, cars and television sets, furniture and gardens and mountain bikes and lawnmowers: he had four boxes of crap, and a set of matchless memories.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“But they had already tried, again and again and again, and always, when the first crashing wave of mutual longing subsided, the ugly wreck of the past lay revealed again, its shadow lying darkly over everything they tried to rebuild.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“Suicides, in his experience, were perfectly capable of feigning an interest in a future they had no intention of inhabiting.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling



“Who was more conscious than the soldier of capricious fortune, of the random roll of the dice?”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“It's an illness," she said, although she made the words sound like "it's uh nillness."
Nillness, thought Strike, for a second distracted. Sometimes illness turned slowly to nillness, as was happening to Bristow's mother... sometimes nillness rose to meet you out of nowhere, like a concrete road slamming your skull apart.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“You're like everyone else, Strike; you want your civil liberties when you've told the missus you're at the office and you're at a lap-dancing club, but you want twenty-four-hour surveillance on your house when someone's trying to force your bathroom window open. Can't have it both ways.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“He had hoped to spot the flickering shadow of a murderer as he turned the file's pages, but instead it was the ghost of Lula herself who emerged, gazing up at him, as victims of violent crimes sometimes did, through the detritus of their interrupted lives.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“For this to happen today, of all days! It felt like a wink from God.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling



“Robin was disposed to feel desperately sorry for anyone with a less fortunate love life than her own – if desperate pity could describe the exquisite pleasure she actually felt at the thought of her own comparative paradise.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


“The country was lumbering towards election day. Strike turned in early on Sunday and watched the day's gaffes, counterclaims and promises being tabulated on his portable TV. There was an air of joylessness in every news report he watched. The national debt was so huge that it was diffcult to comprehend. Cuts were coming, whoever won; deep, painful cuts; and sometimes, with their weasel words, the party leaders reminded Strike of the surgeons who had told him cautiously that he might experience a degree of discomfort; they who would never personally feel the pain that was about to be inflicted.”
― Robert Galbraith, quote from The Cuckoo's Calling


About the author

Robert Galbraith
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“He took his time getting to her, as if he was sure she’d wait, sure of his own strength to hold her, even at that distance. He moved like he thought she was afraid of him, too afraid to run.”
― Cynthia Voigt, quote from Homecoming


“You understand,” Silas says quietly—the words are just for me, but I know Scarlett hears—“I’m . . . when I’m twenty-eight, Rosie. You know what this means. I’m dangerous, Rosie.”
“You plan on loving me when you’re twenty-eight?” I interrupt, uncertain if my question is serious or not.
Silas’s eyes widen in surprise. He turns to look out the taxi window for a moment, and when his eyes meet mine again, there’s a beautiful sincerity glistening in the gray-blue irises. “Rosie . . . I love you. Now, when I’m twenty-eight, when I’m thirty-five . . . I love you.”
I exhale. “Okay, then.”
“But I’m—”
I put a finger against his soft, bow-shaped lips. “Okay, then.”
― Jackson Pearce, quote from Sisters Red


“It's a sword, not a fairy wand, you know.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts


“I can’t help but desire you. I want to taste you again. This feeling I have for you is more than intense ” he said roughly. “It is a possessive thing greedy. I look at you Corinne Bishop and all I can think is that you are mine.”
― Lara Adrian, quote from Deeper Than Midnight


“It's like looking through a microscope your whole life," he (Justin) said. "You miss the whole picture. Sometimes you need to get lost in order to discover anything.”
― Katie Kacvinsky, quote from Awaken


Interesting books

The Diviners
(53.5K)
The Diviners
by Libba Bray
This Side of the Grave
(51.7K)
This Side of the Gra...
by Jeaniene Frost
Incarceron
(53.4K)
Incarceron
by Catherine Fisher
Willow
(30.5K)
At First Sight
(68.7K)
At First Sight
by Nicholas Sparks
Cold Comfort Farm
(35.2K)
Cold Comfort Farm
by Stella Gibbons

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters 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.