Lee Child Quotes
The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end.
Don't be sad that roses have thorns. Be glad that thorns have Roses. Today's the day I worried about yesterday and it didn't happen.
So long as readers keep reading and my publishers keep publishing, I plan to keep on writing. I'd have to be an idiot to be burnt-out in this job.
I need a stimulating environment to write because my books are driven at 100 miles per hour at a time.
What do I miss about the UK? Sadly, almost nothing. Maybe the midnight sun, in June in the north. That's all.
I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.
I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.
The third guy was different. He was what you got when you ate squirrels for four generations. Smarter than a rat and tougher than a goat, and jumpier than either one.
I said nothing. I’m good at saying nothing. I don’t like talking. I could go the rest of my life without saying another word, if I had to.
You see something scary, you should stand up and step toward it, not away from it. Instinctively, reflexively, in a raging fury.
She's a reflection of my fascination with the diversity of America she's totally normal in New York, but a freak in Texas. There are dozens of such clashes in America.
People who wear glasses, without them they always look unfocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed.
I was fired from my television job, simple as that. Well, downsized, really, a classic 1990s situation.
I don't want to put the world to rights... I just don't like people who put the world to wrongs.
I'm opposed to censorship of any kind, especially by government. But it's plain common sense that producers should target their product with some kind of sensitivity.
Sometimes if you want to know for sure whether the stove is hot, the only way to find out is to touch it.
I'm not really into gourmet food; I'm the kind of guy who just stops by a place that looks good rather than heading for the restaurant of the moment.
No, I'm a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don't, I don't.
I have the "thing" worked out - the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out.
Everything you could want - action, suspense, character and setting, all floating on the easy lyricism of a fine writer at the top of his game.
I'd never believed in luck. Never had any cause to. Never relied on it, because I never could.
I was in television drama, which is a first cousin to the movies, and I trust myself to make the right decisions.
The thriller is not a recent invention. It probably goes back to the dawn of storytelling.
British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.
I have three desks. One empty for paperwork, one for the internet and email, and one for the writing computer.
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.
It's a kind of zen question: if you write a book and no one reads it, is it really a book?
A handgun at two hundred feet is the same thing as crossing your fingers and making a wish.
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.
