The Watchman Quotes
"The city was hers for a single hour, just the one magic hour, only hers."
"She gazed up at the buildings and imagined angels perched on the edge of the roofs; tall slender angels with drooping wings; standing in perfect silence, watching her without expectation as if in an eternal dream: We give you the city. No one is watching. Set yourself free."
"For those few minutes running across the city, she could be and was herself, purely and truly herself, finding herself in those moments only to lose herself once more when she slowed."
"The first patrol car arrived in seven minutes; the paramedics three minutes later."
"Everything in her world was about to change."
"People who live in houses like this have deformed children. I can't stay here."
"The attitude makes you memorable. Lose it. You want to be invisible."
"Once you engaged the enemy, speed was everything. Speed was life."
"He lingered at his car until Mrs. Arcano drove away, then looked up and down the street again-both ways, the houses, between the houses-and everything seemed fine."
"She stared straight ahead, her eyes red and wet. She was crying again."
"I won't let anything happen to you. Do you hear me?"
"Are we just going to stay here? Is it even safe here? I want to go home."
"When men ask me to go down like this, it's usually for something else."
"I blew him and now he won't feed me! I'm starving to death!"
"I'm not taking it. That's not the way I want it or why I'm doing it."
"One bag, one purse, that's it. No cell phone. No electronics. No iPod."
"Riding around with him is like riding with a corpse."
"I want to see your eyes. Take off your glasses."
"I don't know these government people or Meesh or the Kings or anything about laundering money from South America. I only wanted to help."
"You control who you are by moving forward, never back; you move forward."
"Though they had graduated from the academy, they would spend the next year becoming street certified by experienced senior officers known as P-IIIs - Pee Threes - who would be their teachers, their protectors, and their Gods."
"Pike figured all that mattered was what a man did in the moment at hand, and whether or not he did right."
"I want to be a police officer because the motto says to protect and to serve. That's what I want to do."
"The good news is that we are Los Angeles police officers. Which means we will use this piece of shit anyway, and still provide the finest police service available in any major American city."
"You will learn how not to hate them. You'll see some sorry bastards out here, Officer Pike, but people aren't so bad."
"Our job isn't to get in fights, Officer Pike. We don't always have a choice, but you get in enough fights, you'll get your ass kicked for sure."
"You're calm as a stone. Me, I'm shaking like a leaf--"
"He liked Flynn's manner, and Flynn's pride in the department, and Flynn's obvious pride in his profession."
"Pike watched the world grow golden, then burnish to a deep copper, then deepen with purple into a murky haze."
"You're probably used to people trying to impress you-they're trying to be funny or get your attention or make you like them. Don't confuse that with being interesting. It isn't."
"Try reading. Beautiful rich chicks can read, can't they?"
"Maybe Joe doesn't answer you because he figures the answers are none of your business."
"When Pike finally released the pressure, he knew the pain would burn on with the ferocity of ant poison."
"Dim mak was the dark side of acupuncture; in one, pressure points used to heal; in the other, to damage."
"Bosses didn't attempt kidnappings in Beverly Hills or get into gunfights. Bosses told other people to take all the chances."
"The silence of an empty house is like no other silence."
"It occurred to him then as it had in the past that policemen were people who ran toward danger. Everyone else ran away."
"The trick was to reach a place where the inside person and the outside person were the same. The closer someone got to this place, the stronger they would become."
"Pike believed each person created himself or herself; you built yourself from the inside out, with the tensions and will of the inside person holding the outside person together."
"If no one sees you, you don't exist, so you find ways to be seen."
"Little things tell you. You see them, you're okay. You miss them, you go to the hospital. You learn to watch."
"Just that he had worked with you. That we could trust you. He said you would get the job done. He guaranteed it."
"By seven-thirty that morning, the Shortstop was filled with night-watch officers anxious to burn off the street before heading home."
"He said, There's the best damned man I ever trained, Officer Joe Pike."
"Don't let these bastards beat you. Just ride it out."
"Our job isn't to kill people-it's to keep people alive."
"He drove away. He played the cards he was dealt even when they were bad cards, and he lived with the result."
"After you had the numbers, everything else was easy."
"Like every other war machine on the planet, they eat money, and they want more."
"Everything happening in the world today is about real estate, Pike."
"She isn't the most stable person. She would have used it to draw attention to herself."
"Families needed to be protected. Families needed someone to be the protector."
"You're tied to a steering wheel. You can't even protect yourself."
"Happiness can be found in the freedom of the open sea."
"A hundred twenty million could buy damn near anything, but not everything."
"The beauty of life lies in its unpredictability."
"Sailing into the unknown is where true adventure begins."