David Baldacci Quotes

He spent the next two days in careful, decisive preparation efficiently conducted around his day job. The three imperatives of his mission were embedded in every action he performed: (1) keep it simple; (2) provide for every contingency; and (3) never panic no matter how much your plan goes awry, which it occasionally did. However, if there were a fourth rule, it would have to be: exploit the fact that most people are fools when it comes to things that actually matter, like their own survival. He had never suffered from that shortcoming.

Next step?" she said. "We have made contact. We expect her to do the same

tersely. Then the line

Lou looked at Davis there praying like God was in his heart and home, while his family remained behind in rags and fear and would have starved except for the kindness of Louisa Cardinal. She could only shake her head.

That's because superstition has it that the first person who gets up from a party of thirteen will die?"
"Precisely. I believe Agatha Christie even wrote a mystery about it.

It was officially known as Kwan-li-so Number 18. That meant Penal Labor Colony in Korean. It was a concentration camp. It was a gulag. It actually was hell, near the Taedong River in North Korea's P'yongan-namdo province.

Life was not fair. If you wanted something you had to take it. Before someone else took it from you. Neatly dissected down to its essence, life was one long series of lily pad hoppings. The quick and the resourceful were able to adapt and survive; all others were simply crushed as a more nimble creature landed on the lily pad they had occupied for too long.

Why was it he was more comfortable with the dead than the living? The answer was relatively simple. The dead conveniently never asked questions.

Trapped in a trap of your own making.

Anyone who's lived has lost somebody.

There's one key difference between the Olympics and combat, Susan. You might have overlooked it." He paused. "In the Olympics, no one is shooting back at you.

Montgomery dude said he killed my parents.

A Mexican border town just across the line from Brownsville, Texas, one of the most dangerous places on earth.

We deal with them all,

Depending on the situation, sometimes you can know a person better in ten minutes than someone you have crossed paths with all your life.

Just know that one answer over the other does not equal a solution. It's only a decision.

He knew exactly what it was like to lose a child. And that fact wouldn't matter in the least in this circumstance. There could be no commiseration among such people despite the seeming commonality of loss, because it was actually each parent's totally unique hell.

But in the end, you can't kill what you can't see coming ...

The human spirit was the strongest medicine on earth. And sometimes all it needed was a little encouragement to pull off a miracle.

He couldn't leave the area and couldn't knowingly go within a hundred feet of someone with a criminal record. He couldn't do drugs and he couldn't own or carry a weapon. The

It's funny that DiCarlo's security

We cannot live without memories, but we cannot live within them either.

I look for material that both interest me and challenges me. If I am drawn to the material and I have to work hard at it, the characters and the plots reflect the hours and hours of research.

Answers to. Maybe the locals already had answers. He would take

Do you have good encryption

You're lying to me, aren't you?" "Pretty much, yeah." "Thanks for being honest about your dishonesty.

People like to talk about other people's misery; it makes them feel their own life is somehow better when it usually isn't.

were rabid, foaming bats blindly cleaving the air around his head. And it seemed that every few steps he would run straight into a twister of mosquitoes. Though he had been paid a large amount of cash up front, he was seriously considering increasing his daily fee on this one.

You learn a lot about a person when she saves your life, - Mecho

There was a time when Stone would have rated a platoon of crackerjack killers coming for him by land, sea and air. Those days apparently were over. A quartet of suits in a Cadillac on steroids was enough.

Smart, dedicated people lost their lives all the time as they trained to be the best they could be to serve their country. Celebrities broke a nail and they immediately took to Twitter, alerting their millions of followers to the "injury," which in turn elicited thousands of replies from people with apparently not enough going on in their lives. And all the while brave men and women died in silence, forgotten by all except their families.

The world is complicated, so people seek complicated solutions. And there's nothing wrong with that because simple answers don't usually work. But sometimes the answers are simple and people still refuse to see them. - Edgar Roy

Miz Louisa, she believed in God with all her soul. But she don't subscribe to church much. She say the way some folk run they's churches, it take God right out cha heart.' - Eugene Randall

Both because of the cold and also to help hide his face.

A number of the wrought-iron fences that encircled the courtyards and gardens of the homes were painted the color of gold on their European-inspired spikes and finials.

Give an economist a result you want, and he'll find the numbers to justify it.

Can't say a body ever gets used to hard work

more. Lee had done this so many times that he could have closed his eyes and his fingers would carry on, manipulating his tools of felony with enviable precision. Lee had already

Although America loved its tough guys, they weren't ready to vote for leaders who exhibited no compassion for the downtrodden and miserable, for on any given day they might constitute a majority.

to contact Command Authority, sir?

When a poor man gives something, that is a sacrifice indeed. When a rich man gives something, it hardly rises to the same level.

Supremely noble act in a world more and more devoid of anything remotely virtuous.

The green spaces in Pyongyang were immense and many in number, but not as immense as the monuments.

See, that why I ain't go to church. Figger I got me a church wherever I be. Want'a talk to God, well I say, 'howdy-howdy, God,' and we jaw fer a bit.' - Jimmy 'Diamond' Skinner

What happened to you as a child, particularly something bad, changed you, absolutely and completely. It was like part of your brain became closed off and refused to mature any further. As an adult you were powerless to fight against it. It was simply who you were until the day you died. There was no "therapy" that could cure it. That wall was built and nothing could tear it down.

It is asking a lot. But when you're attempting to do something truly extraordinary, isn't it fair to ask a lot in return?

Reed said he could maybe find out where it came from back at his office. Check the certified mail records.

He'd been given an assignment to write about teen beauty pageants [ ... ], which he'd accepted because he enjoyed blood sports as much as the next person.

I'm scattered, and then that last hundred pages, bam, I'm a laser.

Growing old is so darn unappealing until you consider the alternative.

And he has guns and dogs that would make the Hound of Baskervilles seem like a bleeding Pekinese.

It's not so much that time heals all wounds, as it is the passage of the years that lets us make peace with our grief in our own way.

He would with appropriate alliances.

did begin his shooting at

Zero Day was here.

Money is just a means to an end. It shouldn't be the goal.

A pretty accurate rule of thumb is the people who did the most talk about it the least. The blowhards are the ones who did squat.

Only I could drink a thousand drinks and never forget a damn thing. I would just remember every detail of the thousand drinks down to the shapes of the ice cubes.

I know. I admit that. You're working with NSC now. And the FBI." "So?" "So how would you like to be part of a joint effort with NIC?" "I already have enough alphabet letters, thanks." "You

They rode in a cab to the rendezvous spot. It was a warehouse, which didn't surprise Shaw.
"It's usually a damn warehouse," he said to Reggie.

But then he put aside the awkward encounter, which his mind allowed him to do quite easily. He could compartmentalize at an astonishing level. It came from not giving a shit.

BED. He smelled his adult sweat, tasted it

It's often said that God works in mysterious ways. You have to really think about what He's trying to do. You can't be lazy and believe in God; He doesn't make it that easy. It takes spirit and faith and passion to really believe. Like most things worthwhile in life, you get back what you put into it. Only with faith, you get back a lot more.

In some ways, it was far easier to be bad than good. When you're bad, you don't care what happens to anyone other than yourself. When you're trying to do god, you have to worry about everyone.

Shaw didn't answer, He didn't know anything, not for sure. But what he did have was an instict that almost never led him down the wrong path. And every inner warning signal he had was blaring away.

I'd read a lot of thrillers about politicians and presidents, but never one where you flip the stereotypes and make good people bad and bad people good.

This surprised him, her turning down his invitation to dine with him, and his face showed it. "Katie."
She rose. Their gazes locked for an extended moment. "Good luck, Shaw."
She hesitated for another second, long enough for him to say something to keep her there. Yet he remained quiet.
She turned and left.
Shaw sat there for several beats, a massive struggle going on inside his mind. Finally, he threw some euros on the table, hustled from the restaurant, and looked up and down the crowded street.
But Katie was already gone.

In fact, something always leads to something else.

Half truths were a wonderful way to inspire credibility.

Inside his head. It was said that savants,

He slipped on the floor and this time his

Time doesn't really heal, it just makes you not to give a crap

The oldest of North Korean labor camps, Bukchang had been hosting dissidents and alleged enemies of the state since the fifties .

that that won't be the case." "I don't trust

Something always leads to something else. - John Puller

She glanced around at the tombstones. "You're surrounded by death here. Way too depressing. You really might want to think about getting another job."
"You see death and sadness in these sunken patches of dirt, I see lives lived fully and the good deeds of past generations influencing the future ones.

The truth always matters,

People who read are a lot more tolerant than people who don't.

National security trumps a lot. It can trampke civil rights. It can denude personal liberties. But it cannot and never will triumph over political gamesmanship. - Kelly Paul

the laundry, and took, in amicable

People are going to eat you alive over this article. And the witch even included the fact of where you're currently living." "I have an ace in the hole." "What's that?" she said curiously. "I don't give a shit.

Triton has lost the use of the money while BankTrust sorts things out and

Diamond Skinner had had no material possessions to his name and yet had been the happiest creature Lou had ever met. He and God would no doubt get along famously.

It was blood. Blood that looked as if it had just been spilled. As I watched, it started pouring down the cavern's walls.

I will never forget that the passing down of memories is the strongest link in the gossamer bridge that binds up as people. I plan to devote my live to doing just that. And if you've taught me anything, it's that what we hold in our hearts is truly the fierest component of our humanity.

The Pullers sat there for a long time together, big, strong, and courageous men transformed back into two little boys by an old man's loving words that had come a lot later than they should have.

Dark, cool, musty, smoky, where light fell funny and everyone looked like someone you knew or wanted to know. Or, more likely, wanted to forget.

You know what kind of person it takes to run for President? Not normal. They could start out okay, but by the time they reach that level they've sold their soul to the devil so many times and stomped the guts out of enough people that they are definitely not like you and me, not even close.

for once in a long time, he felt good. No worries, just possibilities. Endless possibilities.

That was your past, Michelle. You can't live in the past.
Sure you can, Sean. If you're not too thrilled with your future.

He looked around at the others ... They were all staring at their computers, or reading books or newspapers. Not one of them has noticed the weather. Maybe that's how the world was now ... Everyone was so wrapped up in his or her own little world that no one ever really saw anything anymore.

Was it a fire in the kitchen?
No, a bomb in the basement.

Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?

chauffeur of three, including a precocious, independent-minded teenage boy.

Libraries rock! Not a sermon, just a fact. As a kid I was a library rat and books changed my life. They can change yours.

Because life doesn't work that way. You can do everything perfectly. Do everything you think you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill every expectation that other people may have. And you still won't get the results you think you deserve. Life is crazy and maddening and often makes no sense.

and ventured into countries where girls

Confidence is inspiring. Yet so often misplaced. (Robert Thornhill)

With the way the world is now, we all have to think about things beyond our lifetime. Beyond our children's lifetime, in fact. It's our right. It's our duty, my good friend told me.

Just because I work there doesn't mean I have to drink all the Kool-Aid. - Veronica Knox