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.

Many years from now when your children ask what New York City was like just after 9/11, this will be the book you give them in response. It's an exquisite novel full of heart, soul, passion and intelligence, and it's the one this great New York author was born to write.

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

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.

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.

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.