Open Season Quotes

“Wyomingites, Joe had observed, didn’t know what to do when it rained except get out of it, watch it through the window, and wait for it to go away.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“Joe had always considered individual words as finite units of currency, and he believed in savings.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“The relationship between a father and his daughters, Joe had discovered, was a remarkably powerful thing. They looked to him to accomplish greatness; they expected it as a matter of course because he was their dad and therefore a great man.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“We’re bringing good little people into the world who have a mom and a dad who care about them and love them. They know right from wrong because their parents teach them which is which, and because their parents live by example. Somewhere, there is a reward for us, Joe. We need to believe that. We won’t just be abandoned.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“Pronghorn antelope were the second fastest mammals on earth—only an African cheetah could outrun them.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“In Wyoming, the people owned the game animals, and they took their ownership to heart.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“Joe had always considered individual words as finite unites of currency, and he believed in savings. He never wanted to waste or unnecessarily expends words. To Joe, words meant things. They should be spent wisely.”
― C J Box, Open Season

“...sometimes we see things in animals that aren't really there. It's called transference, if that makes any sense.

...I think there are a lot of people who say they do things for animals when they're really doing it for themselves. They see things in animals that might not really be there. I think sometimes that hurts the animals in the end, and it hurts other people, too.

...There are people on both sides of the issue who think animals are more valuable than people are...”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“Joe rarely found a reason to draw his weapon, and even if he did, he doubted he could hit anything with it. Joe was a notoriously bad pistol shot at any range, the worst in his class.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“The only kind of people who would be knocking down big animals now would be poachers or cattle rustlers, and either could be desperate and dangerous if caught in the act.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“mountains, back at the elk camp, reliving what had happened. In the aftershock of the shooting, time had become”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“He had slipped in and out of a kind of cruel half-consciousness that was vivid with dreams and episodes that didn’t connect. Joe followed”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“boom rolls over the terrain but stops sharply in a close-ended way, as if jerked back. A hit is blunt and solid like an airborne grunt. When the sound is heard and identified, it isn’t easily forgotten. When Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett heard the sound, he was building a seven-foot elk fence on the perimeter of a rancher’s haystack. He paused, his fencing pliers frozen in midtwirl. Then he stepped back, lowered his head, and listened. He slipped the pliers into the back pocket of his jeans and took off his straw cowboy hat to wipe his forehead with a bandanna. His red uniform shirt stuck to his chest, and he felt a single, warm trickle of sweat crawl down his spine into his Wranglers. He waited. He had learned over the years that it was easy to be fooled by sounds of any kind outside, away from town. A single, sharp crack heard at a distance could be a rifle shot, yes, but it could also be a tree falling, a branch snapping, a cow breaking through a sheet of ice in the winter, or the backfire of a motor. “Don’t confirm the first gunshot until you hear the second” was a basic tenet of the outdoors. Good poachers knew that, too. It tended to improve their aim. In a way, Joe hoped he wouldn’t hear a second shot. The fence wasn’t done, and if someone was shooting, it was his duty to investigate.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“When dawn breaks over the Bighorns, it breaks hard and fast and with cascades of bright sunlight gushing over the mountains like a broken dam.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“seemed”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“We make wonderful babies,” she said softly. “We’re bringing good little people into the world who have a mom and a dad who care about them and love them. They know right from wrong because their parents teach them which is which, and because their parents live by example.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“said”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“any more about it?” Joe asked.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“John B. Stetsons”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“What humans can do to change the planet is puny.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“Thomas Joseph Pickett,”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“four stoplights”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“Wacey had called Etbauer “the ultimate government employee,” a man who had never collected a paycheck in his life that wasn’t from either the state or the Federal government. He had attained his rank due to a particularly bureaucratic method known as ADV or “advanced due to vacancy.” That meant that Etbauer simply put in his time and moved up as others moved out or retired. As state employees either left to take other jobs or start businesses of their own, bureaucrats like Etbauer (who no private sector employer would ever want on the payroll) simply grew in power and seniority like a tumor within the agency, amassing security and building a fine pension.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“I don't know why it is that alcohol and tobacco are now bad, but jolts of caffeine are suddenly good. It is beyond me, and it makes me feel old.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“He drank a quarter of the drink, then topped off the glass with more Jim Beam. Joe was not much of a drinker anymore, although he’d done more than his share in college and when he worked with Vern. But his intake of alcohol always increased proportionately when his mother-in-law was around.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“lodgepole”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“rifle to shoot at you?”
― C.J. Box, Open Season

“Stops at the end of the road collected Clyde Lidgards like dams collected silt.”
― C.J. Box, Open Season