"It would be an epic road trip, and one he hadn’t made in years."
"Attention to detail, Reacher thought. This was a very organized guy."
"Wherever possible he liked to maintain forward momentum."
"A classic Y-shaped junction. Twitch the wheel left, or twitch the wheel right. Your call."
"I’m going to have to let you out here, the guy said. Is that OK?"
"You got me part of the way. For which I thank you very much."
"Which for an army guy like Reacher was a little too full of Navy people, but which was otherwise a fine spot to start the winter."
"I think historically it was designed to repel. It was defensive. Like the campfire burning in the mouth of the cave."
"From there it was a straight shot to Syracuse."
"All of which the guy did, with a brief gesture Reacher took to be a rueful good-luck wave."
"Not a modern yell, or a whoop or a cackle of laughter. Something deeply primitive. The tribe, under attack."
"Why invest in the future? Do I even have one?"
"The car answered. The temperature needle was jammed against the stop."
"He paid a premium price for what the innkeeper called a suite, but what he called a room with a sofa and way too many floral patterns and feather pillows."
"That’s the kind of thing farmers tell you, right? But I never heard that."
"Then I bet this is the first time the hood was up since it left the factory."
"We need to establish a friendly relationship, Mr. Fleck."
"All we ask in return is that you give as well as take."
"An honest account of your own part in your predicament."
"It would be like putting some chips on the table, I suppose."
"We opened ourselves to you, and now we ask that you return the favor."
"Pride can make you skip one meal, but not two."
"We didn’t neglect your car. We didn’t treat a fine machine like a piece of shit."
"Just say it, Shorty. It won’t be the end of the world."
"Most people would say five to. Or about eleven o'clock."
"Family is important. There will be other ways to find out."
"We could have gone the rest of the way in style."
"Which mechanics eat, by the way. They love potatoes."
"He went up to the records department and pressed the bell. A minute later Elizabeth Castle came in. 'I found them,' he said."
"Reacher ate dinner alone in Laconia, at a greasy hole-in-the-wall with no tablecloths. He didn’t want to risk a fancier place, in case Carter Carrington and Elizabeth Castle picked the same spot."
"They got up and stepped inside the room. They left the door wide open. They shifted the cardboard box to the bed. Patty slit the tape with her thumbnail."
"Reacher looked at her heels and her hair and her nylons and said, 'You work in a cocktail bar.' 'In Manchester.' 'And this guy followed you home.'"
"She pushed away from the boy and stood a yard apart. She didn’t speak. But she looked at Reacher like she didn’t want him to leave."
"Reacher hit him in the face, with a straight right, maximum force, crashing and twisting. Like a freight train."
"She looked back in the box. The other flashlight was where it had started, rammed down into the crux between lunches nine, ten, eleven, and twelve."
"I need the air. Last night I felt like I was choking."
"It was dead ahead as he walked away from the center of downtown. The apartment was now an attorney’s office. The store now sold pants and sweaters."
"Mark said, 'This is the most amazing coincidence.'"
"He wasn’t entirely sure what kind of geographic setting a tin mill would require. Truth was, he wasn’t entirely sure what a tin mill did."
"He pictured a boy on a bike, rattling eagerly away from home, his binoculars bouncing around his neck."
"The road was entirely in shadow. He checked his map as he passed a left turn that led to a place with gray shading but no water."
"Their emotional state is important. Pacing is crucial now."
"It’s what I do. Assuming I find Ryantown first."
"Times had changed. In the past a five-mile walk or a twenty-mile cycle ride would have been considered routine."
"For a time he graded roads for the county. But his address didn’t change."
"You were committing a crime on public land. I would be failing in my duty as a citizen if I didn’t point it out. That’s how civilization works."
"That’s the problem with denial. Reality doesn’t care what you think. It just keeps rolling along."
"What are our apples worth if people think our water is poisoned?"
"Parenting tip: Don’t leave him lying in the road. He could get run over."
"That’s the difference between us. I already have."
"You don’t leave your room at any point. No one ever sees you."
"Why would they give them meals and then expect them to eat in the dark?"
"Watch my lips. We are not going to allow drive-by shootings in our town."
"I never did anything. I felt like a fraud, every July Fourth parade."
"I got what I need," he said. "I'm out of here."
"I'm hoping it was to find a bathroom where they could strip off their jump suits."
"And you go get in the Subaru, right now this minute."
"The military foresaw sooner or later it would require immense storage facilities, literally hundreds of square miles in hundreds of countries, full of food and bales of clothing, all the things that rodents like."
"Don't second-guess it," Reacher said. "Don't overthink it. Don't wait even half a second."
"Your dad joined the Marines at seventeen," Carter Carrington had said. "Got to be a reason."
"We won't," Mark said. "I promise. You'll see. Not forever."
"He’s an innocent bystander. He’s also the guy who goes to bat for you."
"Tell him to see an opportunity where others might see a crisis."
"You should have picked out somewhere expensive."
"Did you like him?" "I felt pressured by him."
"If you meet with him, he’ll tell you something upsetting."
"I’m going to walk." "Your map showed this track is more than two miles long." "I need a place to sleep. Also I’m curious."
"I need to come back to town." "No," she said, for the third time.
"You told me he was deceased." "I was at the funeral."
"That’s crazy." "The odds are better than zero."
"But all those things require a victim. Everything has that in common. A victim, on the premises. Somehow captured and held there, immediately available, when the rest of the party gathers."
"He said, 'Guys, we promised a follow-up session, for questions and answers. Just in case something wasn’t clear, when Peter explained it earlier. So here we are.'"
"Patterns of consumption are changing. Aspirational expenditures are no longer limited to bigger and better physical objects. A bigger house, a bigger diamond, a better Monet. Now there’s a new category. People buy experiences."
"We’ll go to Florida. We’ll have a windsurfer business. Maybe jet skis, too. We’ll sell T-shirts. That’s where the money is."
"The outside air was soft and sweet. The sky was dark as iron."
"We aren’t safe here. We’re sitting ducks here."
"Feel free to take care of the other thing first."
"It’s a big woods. They need to get closer than forty feet."
"I need to get you to the hospital. But first I need to pull the arrow out. Right now you’re gripping it. You need to let it go."
"I got no control. All I know is it hurts like hell."
"Try rubbing the muscle," he said. "Like I had a cramp."
"Now I’m going to find us a quad-bike," she said.
"It was inevitable. If customers pushed for better specimens, this was bound to happen. Sooner or later. A really bold move would come about."
"Plan B," Mark said. "Watch carefully where the flashlight goes."
"I think you did," Reacher said. "I think that’s why you came."
"We’re all related, if you go back far enough."
"It was about watching. What they did, and how, and why, and where, and when."