The Lion's Game Quotes

“Job happiness is directly proportional to the distance you are from the home office.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“I tried to picture a bunch of guys in blue suits running around a beachside neighborhood, knocking on doors and flashing Fed creds. That should cause a stampede of illegal aliens heading south.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“She asked me, “Was your divorce nasty?” “Not at all. The marriage was nasty.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Well, I was on the slippery slope into the abyss of love, companionship, and happiness—and you know where that leads. Misery.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“You’re smarter than you look. Did you ever have anti-terrorist training?” “Sort of. I was married.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Their brilliant schemes get so convoluted that half of them must wake up every morning trying to remember whose side they’re on that week and what lie was the truth disguised as a lie disguised as the truth.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“We didn’t exactly walk arm in arm, but Kate walked close to me and our shoulders kept brushing, and now and then she put her hand on my arm or shoulder as we chatted. Obviously, the woman liked me, but maybe she was just horny. I don’t like being taken advantage of by horny women, but it happens.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“The NYPD has street smarts, and that’s what you need to keep track of Abdul Salami-Salami and Paddy O’Bad and Pedro Viva Puerto Rico”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“The Feds, you have to understand, are so very politically correct and anal retentive, so very fucking frightened of the Washington Thought Police. They’re totally cowed by the stupid directives that come out of Washington like a steady stream of diarrhea.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Second place is just the first loser.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“The only passport you need in America is American Express.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Never ask a man if he wants a bulletproof vest or a pair of mittens. Just make him put it on.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“the movie, starring John Travolta playing an Army CID guy, was terrific, despite a bad review that I recalled reading in Long Island’s Newsday, written by John Anderson, a so-called movie critic, whose opinion I trusted to be the exact opposite of mine.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Boris, in fact, had once worked in a secret training camp in Russia, a KGB facility, called, Khalil remembered, Mrs. Ivanova’s Charm School, where Russian spies had learned to become Americans.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“atme.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“totally unconnected, as inscrutable as a Tibetan monk on quaaludes.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“CIA types are so into deceit, deception, double and triple crosses, paranoia, and bullshit, that you never knew what they knew,”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Cops sit on their asses and flip through their folders. Feds sit on their derrières and peruse their dossiers.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Muslims, Christians, and Jews all trace their origins to the prophet and patriarch Abraham. The Prophet Muhammad is descended from Abraham’s oldest son, Ishmael, and Moses and Jesus are descended from Isaac,” he informed”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“I’m trying to modify my NYPD piggishness. I have not hit on one single—or married—female in the ATTF. I was actually getting a reputation as a man who was either devoted to duty, or was devoted to some off-scene girlfriend, or was gay, or who had a low libido, or who perhaps had been hit below the belt by one of those bullets. In any case, a whole new world was opening up to me now. Women in the office talked to me about their boyfriends and husbands, asked me if I liked their new hairstyles, and generally treated me in a gender-neutral manner. The girls haven’t yet asked me to go shopping with them or shared recipes with me, but maybe I’ll be invited to a baby shower. The old John Corey is dead, buried under a ton of politically correct memos from Washington. John Corey, NYPD Homicide, is history. Special Contract Agent John Corey, ATTF, has emerged. I feel clean, baptized in Potomac holy water, reborn and accepted into the ranks of the pure angelic hosts with whom I work.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“totally incompetent blowhard, an idiot and a fool.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“So, this guy walks into the bar and says to the bartender, ‘You know, all lawyers are assholes.’ And a guy at the end of the bar says, ‘Hey, I heard that. I resent that.’ And the first guy says, ‘Why? Are you a lawyer?’ And the other guy says, ‘No, I’m an asshole.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game

“Do you know why Italians don’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses?” “No… why?” “Italians don’t like any witnesses.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game