Die Trying (Jack Reacher, #2)

by Lee Child

Life was built out of freak chances, however much people would like to pretend otherwise. And he never wasted time speculating about how things might have been different, if this and if that.

“You see this?” he asked. “You know what this is?” “Sort of,” Holly muttered. “It looks a little like a penis, only smaller.”

“The brave man retaliates,” Borken repeated. “But the man who is both brave and clever acts differently. He retaliates first. In advance. He strikes the first blows. He gives them what they don’t expect, when and where they don’t expect it.