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

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.

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.

The key to thrillers is vicarious pleasure.

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

Practically any Western has a homesteader in trouble, and a mysterious rider shows up off the range, solves the problem over two or three days, and then rides off into the sunset.

British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.