Reacher Quotes

I don't want to put the world to rights... I just don't like people who put the world to wrongs.

Reacher said, "So here's the thing Brett. Either you take your hand off my chest, or I'll take it off your wrist.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Never forgive, never forget. Do it once and do it right. You reap what you sow. Plans go to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Protect and serve. Never off duty.

No, I'm a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don't, I don't.

I'm a rich man. To have everything you need is the definition of affluence.

I'm not a vagrant. I'm a hobo. Big difference.

Spread love and understanding,” Reacher said. “Use force if necessary.

I'm not afraid of death. Death's afraid of me.

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.

A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward.

I had a teacher once, grade school somewhere. Philippines, I think, because she always wore a big white hat. So it was somewhere hot. I was always twice the size of the other kids, and she used to say to me: count to ten before you get mad, Reacher. And I've counted way past ten on this one. Way past.

Now they broke my toothbrush, I don't own anything.

hit them fast, hit them hard, and hit them a lot

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 best fights are the ones you don't have", a wise man once said to me.

Reacher said Nothing

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.

Some old guy once said that the meaning of life is that it ends.

I was in the machine. My whole life. Then the machine coughed and spat me out. So I thought, OK, if I'm out, I'm out. All the way out. I was a little angry and it was probably an immature reaction. But I got used to it.

I know I'm smarter than an armadillo

You do not mess with the special investigators.

He had fallen out of the ugly tree, and hit every branch.

Evaluate. Long experience had taught me to evaluate and assess. When the unexpected gets dumped on you, don’t waste time. Don’t figure out how or why it happened. Don’t recriminate. Don’t figure out whose fault it is. Don’t work out how to avoid the same mistake next time. All of that you do later. If you survive.

Like when people say they slept like a baby. Do they mean they slept well? Or do they mean they woke up every ten minutes, screaming?

The Reacher brothers' need for caffeine makes heroin addiction look like an amusing little take-it-or-leave-it sideline.

Slippery slope. I carry a spare shirt, pretty soon I'm carrying spare pants. Then I'd need a suitcase. Next thing I know, I've got a house and a car and a savings plan and I'm filling out all kinds of forms.

To fill a small bag means selecting,and choosing, and evaluating. There's no logicial end to that process. Pretty soon I would have a big bag, and then two or three. A month later I'd be like the rest of you.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

She was a Jew feeder without a question in the world on that man's first night in Molching. She was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a sketchbook to a teenage girl. (84.25)

People, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a man or a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got. His response was their problem. But dogs were different. No free will. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.

Enough, a person might say, if that person lived in the civilized world, the world of movies and television and fair play and decent restraint. But Reacher didn’t live there. He lived in a world where you don’t start fights but you sure as hell finish them, and you don’t lose them either, and he was the inheritor of generations of hard-won wisdom that said the best way to lose them was to assume they were over when they weren’t yet.

He picked up the wrench and broke the guy’s wrist with it, one, and then the other wrist, two, and turned back and did the same to the guy who had held the hammer, three, four. The two men were somebody’s weapons, consciously deployed, and no soldier left an enemy’s abandoned ordnance on the field in working order. The doctor’s wife was watching from the cabin door, all kinds of terror in her face. "What?" Reacher asked her.

An unprovoked head butt is like bringing a sawed-off shotgun to a knife fight.

Keeping your mouth shut is a devastating weapon. Your silence will make your opponent want to babble.

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.

if you can’t acquaint an opponent with reason, you must acquaint his head with the sidewalk.

Imagine the uproar if the Federal government tried to make everyone wear a radio transmitter around their neck so we can keep track of their movements. But people happily carry their cell phones in their purses and pockets.

I'd never believed in luck. Never had any cause to. Never relied on it, because I never could.

The guy who was standing said, “We don’t want you here.” Reacher said, “You’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit what you want.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Where are the deputies?' 'On their way up to the first-aid post.' 'What happened to them?' 'I did.

It gives me some kind of chance to survive the night." "How are those better odds? If you come back with me, you're guaranteed to survive the night." "No," Reacher said. "If I come back with you, I'm guaranteed to die of shame.

Lone women shouldn't stop in the middle of nowhere for giant unkempt strangers with duct tape on their faces.

War isn’t about dying for your country. It’s about making the enemy die for his.” Gen. George S. Patton

I worked thirteen years, got me nowhere. I feel like I tried it their way, and to hell with them. Now I'm going to try it my way.

A handgun at two hundred feet is the same thing as crossing your fingers and making a wish.

You think you've been in deep shit before, and then you realise you have absolutely no conception of how deep shit can really be.

Needing someone doesn't make you weak, it makes you feel. And feeling is how you know you're alive. -Jack Reacher

Reacher said nothing.

I went to college. West Point is technically a college.

The first day of the rest of my life.

Try to look unimportant. They may be low on ammo.

Do it once and do it right and do it quickly

I had to decide how to use that pressure. I had to decide whether it was going to crush me or turn me into a diamond.

Reacher said nothing. We can’t fight thirty people. To which Reacher’s natural response was: Why the hell not?

Waiting is a skill like anything else.

Do you see anything Wrong with my teeth?" "Plenty, I'm surprised you can eat. Maybe that's why your're so little

A good coat is like a good lawyer. it covers your ass.

Everybody has a choice in life.

Ninety percent of asking questions is about listening to answers.

They taught me that inhibitions would kill me. Hit early, hit hard. Kill with the first blow. Get your retaliation in first. Cheat. The gentlemen who behaved decently weren’t there to train anybody. They were already dead.

Nothing ever works like you predict it. All plans fall apart as soon as the first shot is fired.

When you’ve knocked someone unconscious, put him into the recovery position. If you want him to recover.

The basis of any scam is telling people what they want to hear. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If in doubt, say nothing.

Don’t worry about why it went wrong. Just damn well put it right.

Never hit a woman unless she’s trying to kill you.

No one talked, but they all said plenty.

We both sat there mute, as if we were in a no-talking competition and serious about winning.

People who wear glasses, without them they always look unfocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed.

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.

The officers shook hands, and the sniper gave a millimetric nod, which Reacher returned, equally briefly, which for two alleged snipers was effusive, and for a dogface and a jarhead meeting for the first time was practically like rolling around on the floor in an ecstatic bear hug.

he was keeping track of time. It was nearly two hours since he had last looked at his watch, but he knew what time it was to within about twenty seconds. It was an old skill, born of many long wakeful nights on active service. When you're waiting for something to happen, you close your body down like a beach house in winter and you let your mind lock onto the steady pace of the passing seconds. It's like suspended animation. It saves energy and it lifts the responsibility for your heartbeat away from your unconscious brain and passes it on to some kind of a hidden clock. Makes a huge black space for thinking in. But it keeps you just awake enough to be reach for whatever you need to be ready for. And it means you always know what time it is.

People live, and then they die. And as long as they do both things properly, there's nothing much to regret".

In order to win, you must be prepared to lose.

Time to shit or get off the pot.

Attacking me was like pushing open a forbidden door. What waited on the other side was his problem.

He had learned a long time ago that some things were worth being afraid of. And some things were not. Things that he had done before and survived did not justify fear. To be afraid of a survivable thing was irrational.

You see four guys bunched on a corner waiting for you, you either run like hell in the opposite direction without hesitation, or you keep on walking without slowing down or speeding up or breaking stride...Truth is, it's smarter to run. The best fight is the one you don't have. But I have never claimed to be smart. Just obstinate, and occasionally bad-tempered. Some guys kick cats. I keep walking. - Jack Reacher

We should get a cup of coffee." Chang said, "I don't understand how you drink so much coffee." "Law of gravity," Reacher said. "If you tip it up, it comes right out. You can't help but drink it." "Your heart must be thumping all the time." "Better than the alternative.

They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August. They tried to kill him in September. It was way too soon. They weren't ready. The attempt was a failure. It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle. Because nobody noticed.

Dealing with morons … is like teaching Hindu to a beagle.

I’d lost something I never knew I’d had.

No one expects a head butt. Humans don’t hit things with their heads. Some inbuilt atavistic instinct says so. A head butt changes the game. It adds a kind of unhinged savagery to the mix. An unprovoked head butt is like bringing a sawed-off shotgun to a knife fight.

The best fights are the ones you don’t have,

The most unbearable type of anger is a woman’s—do anything to avoid it.

Aim for the side of the skull, which is softer and displaces the brain more.

Older women … are worth it.

They all shared Stan’s personal allegiance to the famous old saying: War is not about dying for your country. It’s about making the other guy die for his.

If you can see a bandwagon, it’s too late to get on.

Anecdotally his fitness reports rated him well above average in the classroom, excellent in the field, fluently bilingual in English and French, passable in Spanish, outstanding on all man-portable weaponry, and beyond outstanding at hand-to-hand combat. Susan knew what that last rating meant. Like having a running chainsaw thrown at you

I'm twenty-nine, yes really, I'm from Aspen, Colorado, I'm six feet one, yes really, I've been at Quantico two years, yes I date guys, no I dress like this just because I like it, no I'm not married, no I don't currently have a boyfriend, and no I don't want to have dinner with you tonight.

He looked at the pain and he set himself apart from it. He saw it, examined it, identified it, corralled it. He isolated it. He challenged it. You against me? Dream on, pal. He built borders for it. Then walls. He built walls and forced the pain behind them and then he moved the walls inward, compressing the pain, crushing it, boxing it in, limiting it, beating it.

First: Character is king. There are probably fewer than six books every century remembered specifically for their plots. People remember characters. Same with television. Who remembers the Lone Ranger? Everybody. Who remembers any actual Lone Ranger story lines? Nobody.

How much do you work out?" "I don't," he said. "It's genetic." Which it was. Puberty had brought him many things unbidden, including height and weight and an extreme mesomorph physique, with a six-pack like a cobbled city street, and a chest like a suit of NFL armor, and biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue. He had never messed with any of it. No diets. No weights. No gym time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, was his attitude.

Thurman asked, “Are you born again?” Reacher said, “Once was enough for me.” “I’m serious.” “So am I.” “You should think about it.” “My father used to say, ‘Why be born again when you can just grow up?’” “Is he no longer with us?” “He died a long time ago.” “He’s in the other place then, with an attitude like that.” “He’s in a hole in the ground in Arlington Cemetery.” “Another veteran?” “Marine.” “Thank you for his service.” “Don’t thank me, I had nothing to do with it.” Thurman said, “You should think about getting your life in order, you know, before it’s too late. Something might happen. The Book of Revelations says ‘The time is at hand.’” “As it has every day since it was written nearly 2000 years ago. Why would it be true now, when it wasn’t before?” “There are signs,” Thurman said, “And the possibility of precipitating events.” He said it primly and smugly, and with a degree of certainty, as if he had regular access to privilieged, insider information. Reacher said nothing in reply. They drove on past a small group of tired men, wrestling with a mountain of tangled steel. Their backs were bent and their shoulders were slumped. Not yet 8 o’clock in the morning, Reacher thought. More than 10 hours still to go. “God watches over them.” “You sure?” “He tells me so.” “Does he watch over you, too?” “He knows what I do.” “Does he approve?” “He tells me so.” “Then why is there a lightning rod on your church?

This was like July 13th, 1943, the pivotal day of the Battle of the Kursk. We were like Alexander Vasilevsky, the Soviet general. If we attacked now, this minute, we had to keep on and on attacking until the enemy was run off his feet and the war was won. If we bogged down or paused for breath even for a second, we would be overrun again.

People spend thousands of dollars on stereos. Sometimes tens of thousands. There is a specialist industry right here in the States which builds stereo gear to a standard you wouldn't believe. Tubed amplifiers which cost more than a house. Speakers taller than me. Cables thicker than a garden hose. Some army guys had that stuff. I'd heard it on bases around the world. Wonderful. But they were wasting their money. Because the best stereo in the world is free. Inside your head. It sounds as good as you want it to. As loud as you want it to be.

They had come for us in the night. Hey had come expecting a lot of blood. They had come with all their gear. Their rubber overshoes and their nylon bodysuits. Their knives, their hammer, their bag of nails. They had come to do a job on us, like they'd done on Morrison and his wife.