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

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.

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.

For men, as they get bogged down with responsibilities, commitments, bureaucracy, it is a fantasy just to think of shedding everything literally, walking away with nothing at all, and just hitting the road.

I was in television drama, which is a first cousin to the movies, and I trust myself to make the right decisions.

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

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.