The Boy from the Woods (Wilde, #1)

by Harlan Coben

Saul Strauss used to be what Gavin would consider committed and passionate in a namby-pamby, Kumbaya-like, eco-green, granola-y, unrealistic sort of way, but more and more, the Sauls of the world had raised their rhetoric to the dangerously hysterical, especially when it came to Rusty Eggers.

Rusty’s motto: Parties Are for Weekends, Not Politics.

Create the problem—then monetize the solution.

Wilde was not a fan of pundits. They came on television to either confirm your narrative or piss you off, and either way, that wasn’t healthy

The left and the right were close enough to have disagreements but not hate.”

The middle has become complacent. They are smart, but they are lazy. They see the grays. They get the other side. Extremists, on the other hand, see only black and white. They are not only certain that their vision is absolutely correct, but they are incapable of even understanding the other side. Those who don’t believe as they do are lesser in every way, and so they will kill for that vision. I get those people, Gavin. And I want to create more of them by forcing those in the middle to choose a side. I want to make them extremists too.”

“Extremists are relentless. They don’t see right or wrong—they see us and them. You’re a baseball fan, aren’t you, Gavin?”

America was waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that one-third of our people will kill one-third of our people while one-third of our people watches.”