Blue Moon Quotes

“No particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“You don’t let an armed man ride behind you unless you know him.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“waited”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“They managed to scope out the whole of the block by staying back in the pawn shop, back in the shadows, traversing side to side, peering out at oblique angles. There were two guys on the sidewalk outside the taxi office door, and two guys some distance away on the left-hand street corner, and two guys the same distance away on the right. Six men visible. Plus probably the same again inside. At least. Maybe two in the hallway the pawnbroker had described, plus two in the conference room, plus two at the mouth of the corridor that led onward to the offices. Each of which was no doubt occupied by a made man with a gun in his pocket and a spare in a drawer”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Quitting eating was one thing. Coffee was a whole different thing entirely.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“It’s something they teach you in the army. The only thing under your direct control is how hard you work. In other words, if you really, really buckle down today, and you get the intelligence, the planning, and the execution each a hundred percent exactly correct, then you are bound to prevail.” “Sounds empowering.” “It’s the army. What they really mean is, if you fail today, it’s completely your own fault.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“guy with the money stood up.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“The same could not be said for the other two guys. The driver had been smashed in the face by the airbag, and then in the back of the head by the other guy, who had been thrown forward from the rear compartment like a spear, right out through the shattering windshield, where he still was, folded at the waist over the crumpled hood, face down. His feet were the nearest part of him. He wasn’t moving. Neither was the driver. Reacher forced open his door against the screech of distorted metal, and he crawled out, and he forced the door shut again after him. There was no traffic behind them. Nothing up ahead either, except dim twinkling headlights, maybe a mile in the distance. Coming toward them. A minute away, at sixty miles an hour. The vehicle the Lincoln had hit was a minivan. A Ford. It was all stoved in on the side. Bent like a banana. It had a banner in the windshield that said No Accidents. The Lincoln itself was a total mess. It was crumpled up like a concertina, all the way back to the windshield. Like a safety ad in a newspaper. Except for the guy draped on top.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“the phone and the”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“I don’t see how his welfare suddenly becomes my responsibility, just because he chose to attack my welfare first.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“suffer. If you don’t do what we”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“this before. I don’t see how his welfare suddenly becomes my responsibility, just because he chose to attack my welfare first. I’m not clear how that works exactly. They started it. They can’t expect me to provide a health plan.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“presence. No”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“happens”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“So”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Plus paranoid. You can bet they did the exact same things on eighteen and twenty. Which would make their buffer zones virtually impregnable.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“He was with a woman in a thousand-dollar dress, and between them they acted out all kinds of dissatisfied body language, telegraphing it, semaphoring it, huffing and puffing, getting more and more exaggerated, until even the doorman noticed.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Human nature. The driver had pulled in during what had obviously been an uproar. Yet he had gone right ahead and popped the trunk. Because he was eager. He couldn’t wait. He wanted the praise and the plaudits.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“The driver was closer, which was good, because he had seemed to be the take-charge guy. The senior figure. He would have the key. In his suit coat pocket, probably. On the left. Because he was right-handed. He would have held his gun in his right and blipped the fob with his left.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Then Barton asked, “Where could we stash him?” “In the trunk of his car,” Reacher said. “He’ll be safe and secure. Maybe not very comfortable, but a crick in the neck is the least of his problems right now.” “He could get out,” Hogan said. “They have a safety device now. A plastic handle that glows in the dark. It pops the trunk from the inside.” “Not in a gangster car,” Reacher said. “I’m sure they removed it.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Probably clipped a vital component. Larynx, or pharynx, or some other kind of essential structure, made of cartilage and spelled with letters from late in the alphabet. The guy’s eyes were rolled up in his head. His fingers were scrabbling gently against the floor, as if trying to get a grip or a purchase on something. Reacher squatted down and went through his pockets, and took his gun, and his phone, and his wallet, and his car keys. The gun was another Glock 17, not recent vintage, worn, but well maintained.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Evidently the Albanian guy thought the same way. His right hand snaked into view and gripped the stair rail. No gun. His left hand followed. No gun. But they were big hands. Smooth and hard, broad and discolored, thick blunt fingers, with what looked like a manicure done by a steak mallet.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“The guy froze for an imperceptible period, just a blink of time, thinking as fast as he was about to act, and then he swooped down, twisting, his right hand whipping through a long arc, aiming to snatch up the gun and grab it tight and whirl it away to safety.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Reacher saw a vertical array of green message bubbles. Texts. Unreadable foreign words, but mostly regular letters, the same as English. Some were doubled up. Some had strange accents above or below. Umlauts and cedillas.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Stands for, aren’t really Marines yet.” “Like Marine stands for muscles are requested, intelligence not expected.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“The guy didn’t move. He was five inches down in height, maybe thirty pounds in weight, maybe a whole foot in reach. Evidently unarmed, because otherwise his weapon would have been out and in his hand already. Evidently unsettled, too, by Reacher’s gaze, which was steady, and calm, and slightly amused, but also undeniably predatory, and even a little unhinged. Not a good situation for the guy to be in.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Show time. Reacher stepped out and turned to face the guy. The H&K gleamed in the dark. He aimed it at the guy’s face. The guy went cross-eyed, trying to stare at it in the poor illumination. Reacher said, “Don’t make a sound.” The guy didn’t. Reacher listened beyond his shoulder. Did the guy have back-up behind him? Apparently not. Nothing to hear. Same as up ahead. City quiet, and old air. Reacher said, “Do we have a problem?” The guy was six feet and maybe two-twenty, maybe forty years old, lean and hard, all bone and muscle and dark suspicious eyes. His lips were clamped tight and pulled back in a rictus grin that could have been worried, or quizzical, or contemptuous. “Do we have a problem?” Reacher asked again. “You’re a dead man,” the guy said. “Not so far,” Reacher said. “In fact right now you’re closer to that unhappy state than I am. Don’t you think?” “Mess with me, and you’re messing with a lot of people.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“Reacher got back to Center Street with no trouble anywhere. His problems started immediately after that. When he was east of Center, which he didn’t understand at all. Wrong faction, surely. But right away he felt eyes on him. He felt people watching him. No benevolence in their gaze. He knew that absolutely. He got a chill on his neck. Some kind of an ancient instinct. A sixth sense. A survival mechanism, baked deep in the back of his brain by evolution. How not to get eaten. Millions of years of practice. His hundred-thousand-times-great-great-grandmother, stiffening, changing course, looking for the trees and the shadows. Living to fight another day. Living to have a kid, who a hundred thousand generations later had a descendant also looking for the shadows, not on the verdant savannah but on the gray nighttime streets, as he slid by lit-up clubs and bars and storefront restaurants.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“How long have you been over here?” Reacher asked. Because he wanted them back on track. Because answering questions eventually became a habit. Start with the easy ones, and work up to the hard ones. A basic interrogation technique. Again the two guys shared a glance, seeking each other’s permission. On the one hand, and on the other hand.”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon

“At that same moment Jack Reacher was seventy miles away, in a Greyhound bus, on the interstate highway. He was on the left side of the vehicle, toward the rear, in the window seat over the axle. There was no one next to him. Altogether there were twenty-nine other passengers. The usual mixture. Nothing special. Except for one particular situation, which was mildly interesting. Across the aisle and one row in front was a guy asleep with his head hanging down. He had gray hair overdue for a trim, and loose gray skin, as if he had lost a lot of weight. He could have been seventy years old. He was wearing a short blue zip jacket. Some kind of heavy cotton. Maybe waterproof. The butt end of a fat envelope was sticking out of the pocket. It”
― Lee Child, Blue Moon