Quotes from The Hard Way

Lee Child ·  371 pages

Rating: (48.9K votes)


“You think you've been in deep shit before, and then you realise you have absolutely no conception of how deep shit can really be.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Do you see anything Wrong with my teeth?"
"Plenty, I'm surprised you can eat. Maybe that's why your're so little”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Special Forces guys were usually small. They were usually lean, fast, and whippy. Built for endurance and stamina and full of smarts and cunning. Like foxes, not like bears.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“I’m not much to talk about. What you see is what you get.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“He believed that anything could be reverse-engineered. If one human or group of humans put something together, then another human or group of humans could take it apart again. It was a basic principle. All that was required was empathy and thought and imagination. And he liked pressure. He liked deadlines. He liked a short and finite time to crack a problem. He liked a quiet space to work in. And he liked a similar mind to work with.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way



“It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Jack Reacher ordered espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man’s life change forever.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“A soldier knows that a satisfactory observation point provides an unobstructed view to the front and adequate security to the flanks and the rear. He knows it provides protection from the elements and concealment of the observers. He knows it offers a reasonable likelihood of undisturbed occupation for the full duration of the operation.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Reacher liked New York more than most places. He liked the casual indifference of it all and the frantic hustle and the total anonymity.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“His shoes were bench-made by a company called Cheaney, from Northampton in England. Smarter buys than Church’s, which were basically the same shoes but with a premium tag for the name. The style Reacher had chosen was called Tenterden, which was a brown semi-brogue made of heavy pebbled leather.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way



“He liked the electric darkness and the hot dirty air and the blasts of noise and traffic and the manic barking sirens and the crush of people. It helped a lonely man feel connected and isolated both at the same time.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“the only way to keep fear and panic at bay was to concentrate ruthlessly on the job at hand.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“You try that shit and i'll bend you over and i'll use Addison's head to hammer Perez up your ass like a nail”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Text messaging,” Pauling said. “What’s that?” “You can send written words by cell phone.” “When did that start?” “Years ago.” “OK,” Reacher said. “Live and learn.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Audibility decays according to the inverse square law. Twice the distance, the sound gets four times as quiet. Four times the distance, sixteen times as quiet.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way



“No reason to look for complications. You hear hoof beats, you look for horses, not zebras.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“No,” Burke said. “Thank God.” So”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Reacher always arranged the smallest details in his life so he could move on at a split second’s notice. It was an obsessive habit. He owned nothing and carried nothing. Physically he was a big man, but he cast a small shadow and left very little in his wake.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


“Drivers hit their horns in anticipation of potential fractional delays.”
― Lee Child, quote from The Hard Way


About the author

Lee Child
Born place: The United Kingdom
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“But: all journeys were return journeys. The farther one traveled, the nakeder one got, until, towards the end, ceasing to be animated by any scene, one was most oneself, a man in a bed surrounded by empty bottles. The man who says, "I've got a wife and kids" is far from home; at home he speaks of Japan. But he does not know - how could he? - that the scenes changing in the train window from Victoria Station to Tokyo Central are nothing compared to the change in himself; and travel writing, which cannot but be droll at the outset, moves from journalism to fiction, arriving promptly as the Kodama Echo at autobiography. From there any further travel makes a beeline to confession, the embarrassed monologue in a deserted bazaar. The anonymous hotel room in a strange city...”
― Paul Theroux, quote from The Great Railway Bazaar


“Quand j'arrive à la gare de l'Est, j'espère toujours secrètement qu'il y aura quelqu'un pour m'attendre. C'est con. J'ai beau savoir que ma mère est encore au boulot à cette heure-là et que Marc est pas du genre à traverser la banlieue pour porter mon sac, j'ai toujours cet espoir débile. [...] Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part... C'est quand même pas compliqué.”
― Anna Gavalda, quote from I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere


“I get the willies when I see closed doors.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Something Happened


“This baby is a daughter of the goddess, and so she’s a T-H-R-E-A-T to them, you bet. A big threat. She could bounce the King, if she grows up, which…certain persons…would like her not to do. And there’s other people who want her to grow up but would want to, what, be her manager, you know? Boss her, use her. Climb into the tower by means of her Rapunzel hair, yes, sir. Right into that tower.” Scott”
― Tim Powers, quote from Last Call


“He told me not to seek revenge, but to seek the Buddha,' said the fox spirit, sadly.

'Wise counsel,' said the fox of dreams. 'Vegeance can be a road that has no ending. You would be wise to avoid it. And...?'

'I shall seek the Buddha,' said the fox, with a toss of her head. 'But first I shall seek revenge.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Sandman: The Dream Hunters


Interesting books

Threats
(2.1K)
Threats
by Amelia Gray
This Book is Gay
(2.9K)
This Book is Gay
by James Dawson
Love Wins Low Price CD: Love Wins Low Price CD
(20.3K)
Love Wins Low Price...
by Rob Bell
Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series
(7.5K)
Chasers of the Light...
by Tyler Knott Gregson
Homeland and Other Stories
(5.9K)
Homeland and Other S...
by Barbara Kingsolver
Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul
(2.7K)

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.