Richard Stark > Quotes

“If you leave me here," the guy on the floor said, "he'll kill me tomorrow morning."
Parker looked at him. "So you've still got tonight," he said.”
― Richard Stark, Dirty Money

“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.”
― Richard Stark, Firebreak

“I'm going to drink his blood, I'm going to chew up his heart and spit it into the gutter for the dogs to raise a leg at. I'm going to peel the skin off him and rip out his veins and hang him with them.”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“I'm only the messenger!"
"Now you're the message", Parker told him and shot him.”
― Richard Stark, Butcher's Moon

“The office women looked at him and shivered. They knew he was a bastard, they his big hands were born to slap with, they knew his face would never break into a smile when he looked at a woman. They knew what he was, they thanked God for their husbands, and still they shivered. Because they knew how he would fall on a woman in the night. Like a tree".”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“Never leave a guy alive who'd like to see you dead.”
― Richard Stark, Plunder Squad

“Already today I hit you twice. Once I knocked the wind out of you, once I knocked the consciousness out of you. Here you are back the third time. You call that smart?”
― Richard Stark, The Jugger

“When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.”
― Richard Stark, The Mourner

“You don't have any claim on the money, and there's no proof I ever saw or touched or spent a dollar of it. You want to take me to court?"
"You're in court right now," Parker said.”
― Richard Stark, Butcher's Moon

“Killing was never a good idea unless there were no other ideas.”
― Richard Stark, Backflash

“Please...they'll kill me. I'll kill you...worry about me.”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“Parker spent two weeks on the white sand beach at Biloxi, and on a white sandy bitch named Belle.”
― Richard Stark, The Rare Coin Score

“Hemingway’s judgment on people, that the competent guy does it on his own and the incompetents lean on each other.” In”
― Richard Stark, The Mourner

“His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless. His suit coat fluttered behind him, and his arms swung easily as he walked.”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“People get used to everything but being dead.”
― Richard Stark, Backflash

“The world was filling up with people, it seemed to him, who pulled their punches everywhere they went in life. Light beer, decaf coffee, low-sodium seltzer.”
― Richard Stark, Nobody Runs Forever

“What was the sense of talking about a problem if you didn't have a way to solve it?”
― Richard Stark, The Score

“You can steal in this country, you can rape and murder, you can bribe public officials, you can pollute the morals of the young, you can burn your place of business down for the insurance money, you can do almost anything you want, and if you act with just a little caution and common sense you’ll never even be indicted. But if you don’t pay your income tax, Grofield, you will go to jail.”
― Richard Stark, The Score

“Walter Jelinek was a man, but he looked like a car, the kind of old junker car that had been in some bad accidents so that now the frame is bent, the wheels don’t line up any more, the whole vehicle sags to one side and pulls to that side, and the brakes are oatmeal.”
― Richard Stark, Breakout

“Well, it just figures," Younger told him, like a man explaining his religion.”
― Richard Stark, The Jugger

“A TV preacher, you know those guys? Evangelists."
"I thought they were all in jail," Parker said.”
― Richard Stark, Comeback

“This is crazy," he said. "You don't just shoot people."

"Yes I do," Parker said.”
― Richard Stark, Flashfire

“Oh my God," he said. "Oh my God."
"You'll see him soon," Parker said.”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“For you, that tree is dead.”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell.”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“She's dead. So is your fat pansy. You can be dead, too, if you want.”
― Richard Stark

“All I want is to be in a place I’m not trying to get out of.”
― Richard Stark, Breakout

“They had this block to themselves. The windows of all the tenements on both sides were marked with the white X of urban renewal; they stood nearly empty, waiting for the wreckers. Within them the cockroaches crawled and the rats chittered, but the humans were away, infesting some other neighborhood.”
― Richard Stark, The Seventh

“He beat out a drumroll on the table edge with the first two fingers of each hand.”
― Richard Stark, The Hunter

“It was dangerous to kill when there wasn't enough reason, because after a while killing became the solution to everything, and when you got to thinking that way you were only one step from the chair.”
― Richard Stark, The Man with the Getaway Face