Quote collection
100 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Imagine the uproar if the Federal government tried to make everyone wear a radio transmitter around their neck so we can keep track of their movements. But people happily carry their cell phones in their purses and pockets."
"Hope for the best, plan for the worst."
"The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end."
"Don't be sad that roses have thorns. Be glad that thorns have Roses. Today's the day I worried about yesterday and it didn't happen."
"Don't get it right - get it WRITTEN!"
"I have a kind of old-fashioned, artisan approach."
"The first day of the rest of my life."
"Spread love and understanding,” Reacher said. “Use force if necessary."
"I grew up in Birmingham, where they made useful things and made them well."
"So long as readers keep reading and my publishers keep publishing, I plan to keep on writing. I'd have to be an idiot to be burnt-out in this job."
"A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward."
"Many years from now when your children ask what New York City was like just after 9/11, this will be the book you give them in response. It's an exquisite novel full of heart, soul, passion and intelligence, and it's the one this great New York author was born to write."
"Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That's how I see it."
"I need a stimulating environment to write because my books are driven at 100 miles per hour at a time."
"I'm a rich man. To have everything you need is the definition of affluence."
"What do I miss about the UK? Sadly, almost nothing. Maybe the midnight sun, in June in the north. That's all."
"I was in the machine. My whole life. Then the machine coughed and spat me out. So I thought, OK, if I'm out, I'm out. All the way out. I was a little angry and it was probably an immature reaction. But I got used to it."
"The best fights are the ones you don't have", a wise man once said to me."
"People spend thousands of dollars on stereos. Sometimes tens of thousands. There is a specialist industry right here in the States which builds stereo gear to a standard you wouldn't believe. Tubed amplifiers which cost more than a house. Speakers taller than me. Cables thicker than a garden hose. Some army guys had that stuff. I'd heard it on bases around the world. Wonderful. But they were wasting their money. Because the best stereo in the world is free. Inside your head. It sounds as good as you want it to. As loud as you want it to be."
"I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy."