Nothing to Lose Quotes

“No, I'm a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don't, I don't.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“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.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“I have to warn you. I promised my mother, a long time ago. She said I had to give folks a chance to walk away.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Where are the deputies?'
'On their way up to the first-aid post.'
'What happened to them?'
'I did.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Thurman asked, “Are you born again?”
Reacher said, “Once was enough for me.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You should think about it.”
“My father used to say, ‘Why be born again when you can just grow up?’”
“Is he no longer with us?”
“He died a long time ago.”
“He’s in the other place then, with an attitude like that.”
“He’s in a hole in the ground in Arlington Cemetery.”
“Another veteran?”
“Marine.”
“Thank you for his service.”
“Don’t thank me, I had nothing to do with it.”
Thurman said, “You should think about getting your life in order, you know, before it’s too late. Something might happen. The Book of Revelations says ‘The time is at hand.’”
“As it has every day since it was written nearly 2000 years ago. Why would it be true now, when it wasn’t before?”
“There are signs,” Thurman said, “And the possibility of precipitating events.”
He said it primly and smugly, and with a degree of certainty, as if he had regular access to privilieged, insider information. Reacher said nothing in reply.
They drove on past a small group of tired men, wrestling with a mountain of tangled steel. Their backs were bent and their shoulders were slumped. Not yet 8 o’clock in the morning, Reacher thought. More than 10 hours still to go.
“God watches over them.”
“You sure?”
“He tells me so.”
“Does he watch over you, too?”
“He knows what I do.”
“Does he approve?”
“He tells me so.”
“Then why is there a lightning rod on your church?”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“That should be your town motto. It's all I ever hear. Like: New Hampshire, Live Free or Die. It should be: Despair, You Need To Leave Now.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“The guy who was standing said, “We don’t want you here.” Reacher said, “You’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit what you want.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“We’re all atheists. You don’t believe in Zeus or Thor or Neptune or Augustus Caesar or Mars or Venus or Sun Ra. You reject a thousand gods. Why should it bother you if someone else rejects a thousand and one?”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Some officers of his acquaintance had barked and yelled and shouted. He had always found it more effective to speak low and quiet, enunciating clearly and precisely as if to an idiot child, bearing down with an icy stare. That way he had found the implied menace to be unmistakable.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Canada's army is three men and a dog. They probably keep their stuff forever.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“A crowd two hundred strong was the largest animal on the face of the earth. The heaviest, the hardest to control, the hardest to stop. The hardest to kill. Big targets, but after-action reports always showed that crowds took much less than one casualty per round fired.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“The best defense against knives was distance. The best countermove was entanglement.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“The only opponents Reacher truly feared were small whippy guys with fast hands and sharp blades.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Psychologists figured that the memory center was located in the left brain, and the imagination engine in the right brain. Therefore people unconsciously glanced to the left when they were remembering things, and to the right when they were making stuff up. When”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Reacher hated turning back. He liked to press on, dead ahead, whatever.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“There was nothing in his pockets except paper money and an expired passport and an ATM card and a clip-together toothbrush.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“The line between Hope and Despair was exactly that: a line, in the road,”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“There were pictures on the walls, all of them dime-store prints of Jesus. In all of them Jesus had blue eyes and wore pale blue robes and had long blond hair and a neat blond beard. He looked more like a Malibu surfer than a Jew from two thousand years ago.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“and hot raw wood. There was a guy behind a counter, in worn blue overalls stained black with dirt. He was”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Because deep down to the army a wounded soldier that can’t fight anymore is garbage. So we depend on civilians, and civilians don’t care either.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Inside was a ten-digit keypad. A combination lock. One through nine, plus zero, laid out like a telephone. A possible 3,628,800 variants. It”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“There was a four-place table with only three chairs. There were what Reacher’s mother had called “touches.” Dried flowers, bottles of virgin olive oil that would never be used, antique spoons. Reacher’s mother had said such things gave a room personality. Reacher himself had been unsure how anything except a person could have personality. He had been a painfully literal child. But over the years he had come to see what his mother had meant. And Vaughan’s kitchen had personality.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Thurman said, “God wants me to complete my task.” “What, he told you that in the last two minutes?” “I think you’re an atheist.” “We’re all atheists. You don’t believe in Zeus or Thor or Neptune or Augustus Caesar or Mars or Venus or Sun Ra. You reject a thousand gods. Why should it bother you if someone else rejects a thousand and one?”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Dum spero speri. Where there’s breath, there’s hope.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“The internal gate had some kind of a control”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“If I visit and he doesn’t know I’ve visited, have I really visited at all? It’s self-indulgent to come here just to make myself feel like a good wife.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“Get your retaliation in first.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“He dropped by the office, to pay for another night’s stay. He always rented rooms one night at a time, even when he knew he was going to hang out in a place longer. It was a reassuring habit. A comforting ritual, intended to confirm his absolute freedom to move on.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“In Reacher's experience new Suburbans were driven by uptight assholes. But old models were plain, utilitarian vehicles often driven by plain, utilitarian people.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose

“except the woman he had gotten it for.”
― Lee Child, Nothing to Lose