“Indignation is often the best defense.”

“No matter how offensive she's been to me, she continues to act as if she has some sort of God-given right to keep coming back for more favors.”

“For twenty-four hours, she'd been running on her standard triple A's: ambition, adrenaline, and anxiety. Add two gut-wrenching plane rides on less than two hours sleep and her nerves, like her muscles, were screaming. None of this, she knew was visible even to the keenest observer. And she meant to keep it that way.”

“Reacher was the kind of guy who solved all problems as permanently as possible.”

“Alligators have beautiful undulating skin, which feels dense, spongy, solid, like the best eraser.”

“Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.”

“Every so often I take out a volume and read a page or two. After all, reading is looking after in a manner of speaking. Though they're not old enough to be valuable for their age alone, nor important enough to be sought after by collectors, my charges are dear to me, even if, as often as not, they are as dull on the inside as on the outside. No matter how banal the contents, there is always something that touches me. For someone now dead once thought these words significant enough to write them down.”