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
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“His features were Middle Eastern, his eyes haunted but also defiant. They were all defiant, Gray had found. When he looked at someone like al-Omari, Gray couldn’t help but think of a Dostoyevsky creation, the displaced outsider, brooding, plotting and methodically stroking a weapon of anarchy. It was the face of a fanatic, of one possessed by a deranged evil. It was the same type of person who’d taken away forever the two people Gray had loved most in the world. Though al-Omari was thousands of miles away in a facility only a very few people even knew existed, the picture and sound were crystal clear thanks to the satellite downlink. Through his headset he asked al-Omari a question in English. The man promptly answered in Arabic and then smiled triumphantly. In flawless Arabic Gray said, “Mr. al-Omari, I am fluent in Arabic and can actually speak it better than you. I know that you lived in England for years and that you speak English better than you do Arabic. I strongly suggest that we communicate in that language so there is absolutely no misunderstanding between us.” Al-Omari’s smile faded, and he sat straighter in his chair. Gray explained his proposal. Al-Omari was to become a spy for the United States, infiltrating one of the deadliest terrorist organizations operating in the Middle East. The man promptly refused. Gray persisted and al-Omari refused yet again, adding that “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “There are currently ninety-three terrorist organizations in the world as recognized by the U.S. State Department, most of them originating in the Middle East,” Gray responded. “You have confirmed membership in at least three of them. In addition, you were found with forged passports, structural plans to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and bomb-making material. Now you’re going to work for us, or it will become distinctly unpleasant.” Al-Omari smiled and leaned toward the camera. “I was interrogated years ago in Jordan by your CIA and your military and your FBI, your so-called Tiger Teams. They sent females in wearing only their underwear. They wiped their menstrual blood on me, or at least what they called their menstrual blood, so I was unclean and could not perform my prayers. They rubbed their bodies against me, offered me sex if I talk. I say no to them and I am beaten afterward.” He sat back. “I have been threatened with rape, and they say I will get AIDS from it and die. I do not care. True followers of Muhammad do not fear death as you Christians do. It is your greatest weakness and will lead to your total destruction. Islam will triumph. It is written in the Qur’an. Islam will rule the world.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Camel Club


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