The Lion Quotes

“It's really scary when you have a moment of temporary sanity.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“…made me promise to cut down on the drinking and swearing, which I have. Unfortunately, this has left me dim-witted and nearly speechless.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“...the most common cause of death among alpha males was ego.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Mrs. Corey still uses her maiden name for business, or when she wants to pretend she doesn’t know me.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Kate had never been married, so she had no way of knowing if I was a normal husband. This has been good for our marriage.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“I want to be back to work next week.
'Let’s get you home first. I need to evaluate the extent of your mental impairment.' She tried to flash me the peace sign, but in her weakend condition, she only managed to raise her middle finger.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“How you doing at 26 Fed?"
“I’m growing and learning, meeting new challenges with confidence and enthusiasm while developing good work ethics and people skills.”
“I’m surprised they haven’t fired your ass.”
“Me too.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Detective Ramos confided in me, 'If something happens to you on my watch my ass is O-U-T.' 'How do you think I’d feel? D-E-A-D.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“He suddenly rushed me and somehow managed to smash his balls into my fist.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Actually, she’d made me promise to cut down on the drinking and swearing, which I have. Unfortunately, this has left me dim-witted and nearly speechless.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“(ATTF) represented in this novel is based on the actual Joint Terrorism Task Force, though I have taken some literary license where necessary. The Joint Terrorism Task Force is an organization of dedicated, professional, and hardworking men and women who are in the front line in the war”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“talented wisecracker.…”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“cell phone? Had it fallen out of her pocket? Or had she left it in the motel room or the car? I wouldn’t want to think that Asad Khalil had her cell phone”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“They squandered the hard-won wealth of their forefathers and lived like maggots on the decaying corpse of their empire.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Avenue,”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“assignment”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“detective”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“intelligence”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you’re done.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Third”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“wasn’t sure what Paresi meant by confidential, and he wasn’t going to say in his text, “This is cop-to-cop,” but that was the implication. Maybe he was finally getting his head on straight. I texted him: 20 minutes. I called down to the parking garage and was happy to get Gomp on the phone. I said, “Gomp, this is Tom Walsh.” “Hey, Tom, how ya doin’?” “Swell. I need a ride down to Sixty-eighth and Lex again.” “Sure thing.” “I need you to meet me at the freight elevator.” “Freight elevator?” “Right. Two minutes. And mum’s the word.” I added, “Fifty bucks.” “Sure thing.” I hung up and strapped on my gun belt and hip holster. On the belt, in a sheath, was Uncle Ernie’s K-bar knife that I’d taken with me on all my walks in the park. I put on a blue windbreaker and left my apartment. As I was speed walking toward the freight elevator, I realized my vest was packed in my luggage. I don’t normally wear a vest, so it’s not second nature, like my gun, or my shield, or leaving the toilet seat up. I hesitated and looked at my watch. The hell with it. I got in the freight elevator, hit the garage button, and down I went. The elevator doors opened, and there was Gomp sitting in a nice BMW SUV. I was glad he hadn’t stolen my green Jeep. I came around the car and said to him, “I need help with something in the elevator.” “Sure thing.” He got out of the BMW and moved toward the freight elevator as I jumped in the driver’s seat. Gomp shouted, “Hey! Tom! Where you—?” I hit the accelerator, drove up the ramp, and turned right onto 72nd Street. I caught the green light at Third Avenue and continued on. I looked in the rearview mirror. There wasn’t much traffic at this hour on a drizzly Sunday night, and I didn’t see any headlights trying to keep up with me. That was easy. Subways are faster than cars in Manhattan, but the closest station to the World”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“COMMUNITY. This was to be expected and it did not cause him any alarm. His potential contacts in America were”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“beyond American surveillance. There were no other messages on Haytham’s phone, and he shut it off. He accessed the text messages on Mayfield’s phone and saw a new text from Walsh. It read: TO ALL FBI AGENTS AND NYPD DETECTIVES: TWO LIBYAN INFORMANTS IN NY METRO HAVE COME FORWARD WITH INFO ON SUSPECT KHALIL IN CONUS. CHECK E-MAIL FOR DETAILS AND OPERATIONAL INSTRUCTION REGARDING APPREHENDING SUSPECT. WALSH, SAC, ATTF/NY. He shut off Mayfield’s phone and thought about this. If this was true, it presented some problems to him and to his mission. In fact, he would not know who to trust. He realized, though, that if this message from Walsh had been sent to all agents and all detectives, then it should have appeared on Haytham’s screen. But it had not. And Walsh did not know at the time he sent his message that he, Asad Khalil, would have Haytham’s phone in his possession. So why was the message not on Haytham’s phone? And why was it on Mayfield’s phone? She was dead when the message was sent. Therefore, he thought, this was a false message, sent only to Mayfield’s cell phone, which Walsh must now suspect was in the hands of Asad Khalil. And this was why Mayfield’s phone was still in service. He sat back on the bench and stared out at the sunlit water. So perhaps they were being clever. But not clever enough. Or… possibly it was a true message, but not actually sent to all detectives and agents despite the heading. Perhaps they did not trust Haytham. Or perhaps Haytham was not included for some other reason. In truth, Khalil did not know all there was to know about the inner workings of the Task Force, which was not as well known to Libyan Intelligence—or to his new friends in Al Qaeda—as was the FBI, for instance. In any case, this message had all the tell-tale signs of disinformation, and that was how he would regard it, which would please Boris, who had spent days teaching him about this. Boris had said, “The British are masters of disinformation, the Americans have learned from them, the French think they invented it, and the Germans are not subtle enough to put out a good lie. As for the Italians, your former colonial masters, they believe their”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“the theory that if he was still alive, that meant that Khalil hadn’t begun his final cleanup operation. Boris didn’t answer his cell phone, but neither did Asad Khalil nor a homicide detective, so I left another message with the maître d’ for Boris”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Nietzsche’s famous dictum—the most common form of human stupidity is forgetting what one is trying to do”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“The surest way to get your head blown off is to have it up your ass.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“They’re from the government and they’re there to help you.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“They should have a slot game called Sucker. You get a row of five suckers and the machine kicks you in the nuts and swallows all the coins in your tray.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“Tom Walsh doesn’t exactly talk down to people, but there’s a thin line between him stating the obvious and him thinking he’s giving you new information.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion

“The British are masters of disinformation, the Americans have learned from them, the French think they invented it, and the Germans are not subtle enough to put out a good lie. As for the Italians, your former colonial masters, they believe their own disinformation and act on it.”
― Nelson DeMille, The Lion