John Sandford Quotes

Virgil had read once that Grandma Moses was a primitive painter because she thought snow was white. The writer said if you really looked at it, snow was hardly ever white. It mostly was a gentler version of the color of the sky - blue, gray, orange in the evenings and mornings, often with purple shadows. When he looked, sure enough, the guy was right, and Grandma Moses had her head up her ass. ~ John Sandford

You know, I believe every word you've said, but I don't need this. I've got six officers working for me full-time, plus four reserve deputies and a dog, and the dog got his feet cut up on broken glass yesterday and he's out of it for a week. That means two guys for busy shifts, one guy for others. The dog has the most experience. Not counting the part-timers, he might even be the smartest. I include myself in that. I've never investigated anything more complicated than mailbox theft. ~ John Sandford

The gun locked open and he slammed another magazine in. As he did it, he either saw or imagined he saw a ripple moving through the cornfield and fired four more shots at it, then stopped, crouched, and stepped sideways across the nose of the truck, saw Robertson facedown in the driveway gravel. He was alive, pushing up with his hands, getting nowhere. ~ John Sandford

JENKINS AND VIRGIL walked back up the valley to the Ruff house, and found Muddy inside, tootling on a black electric guitar, a complex ~ John Sandford

Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you'll find it is a very nice piece of writing. ~ John Sandford

was crooked as a sidewinder rattlesnake. "So what ~ John Sandford

a few times, and then pushed the screen door open. "Let's go," Stern said. As they crossed the porch ~ John Sandford

Quintana had known Tubbs since high school; Tubbs had been one of the slightly nerdy intellectuals on the edge of the popular clique, while Quintana had been metal shop and a football lineman. ~ John Sandford

Focus on our ignorance." She didn't quite grasp the concept. She'd never been ignorant. ~ John Sandford

We're both going," Lucas said. "We don't need to track Green. But if Dannon killed Carver, he's going to dump him. We need to be there - we need everybody to be there." "I could drive," Del said. "They're too far ahead of us," Lucas said. "I need to drive." "Goddamnit. I hate it when you drive," Del said. "I get so puckered up that I've got to pull my asshole back out with a nut pick." "Thanks for the image," Lucas said. "Let's go. ~ John Sandford

I used to be a Catholic, and when I first started police work, I worried about that. I saw a lot of people dead or dying for no apparent reason . . . not people I killed, just people. Little kids who'd drowned, people dying in auto accidents and with heart attacks and strokes. I saw a lineman burn to death, up on a pole, little bits and pieces, and nobody could help . . . . I watched them go, screaming and crying and sometimes just lying there with their tongues stuck out, heaving, with all the screaming and hollering from friends and relatives . . . and I never saw anyone looking beyond. I think, Michael, I think they just blink out. That's all. I think they go where the words on a computer screen go, when you turn it off. One minute they exist, maybe they're even profound, maybe the result of a great deal of work. The next . . . . Whiff. Gone. ~ John Sandford

First she got Jesus, probably fifteen years ago, and that didn't work out, so she tried Scientology, and that didn't help, but it cost a lot of money, so she tried Buddhism and yoga, and those didn't work, so she started drinking. I think that helped, because she's still drinking. ~ John Sandford

Does Raggedy Ann have a cotton crotch? ~ John Sandford

With most of my books, I'll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the scene pop. ~ John Sandford

Gonna rain like a cow pissin' on a flat rock [drugstore clerk to detective Virgil Flowers] Dark of the Moon, p.7 ~ John Sandford

If something did happen to Bowden, how would that affect your chances?" Lucas asked. "What a rotten, cynical question to ask. I'm proud of you," Henderson said. ~ John Sandford

bar. Lucas pointed at a stool and said, "Beer? ~ John Sandford

You're saying the media is dangerous, immoral, and antidemocratic?" "Well . . . yes," Henderson said. "They don't recognize it in themselves, but they're basically criminals. In the classic sense of that word. ~ John Sandford

I could live here," Del said. "No, you couldn't. You'd turn into a coot and hang out at the general store, with your fly down," Lucas said. "You'd be known for goosing middle-aged women. You'd be the town embarrassment. ~ John Sandford

Time passes, but sometimes it beats the shit out of you as it goes. ~ John Sandford

Catholics don't scream about Jesus, they scream about the bishop. ~ John Sandford

Her voice was stark as a winter crow. ~ John Sandford

Thanks, Alice," Grant said, and to Lucas, "I don't like you, and I suspect you don't like me, but try to be fair. Don't stick yourself into this campaign. Don't sabotage me." "I'm not trying - " "Whether you're trying or not, that's the effect," Grant said. "Wait a week or ten days, let the election take place, then do your worst. But give me a chance. I've worked very hard for it. ~ John Sandford

bit: that there was a possibility of a conspiracy aimed at Michaela Bowden. ~ John Sandford

Good. And I'll tell you, Ron, we are going to put some serious shit on you. We're also going to give you a way out. All of that gets canceled if you talk to Dannon or Grant. They're the targets in this. We've already got a guy willing to swear that Dannon set up the porn deal for Grant. You can walk, or you can get added to the list. I'll see you at three, and we'll decide which it is." Lucas clicked off without giving him a chance to answer. ~ John Sandford

Fresh ideas from this group was virtually an oxymoron, Marlys thought, wriggling her butt against the comfortless chair. ~ John Sandford

Good," Lucas said. "And hey - relax. Gonna be all right." "No, it won't," she said. "I can almost guarantee that whatever it is, it won't be all right. ~ John Sandford

LOUISE WAS SORTING nuts and bolts into metal bins at the back of the somnambulant hardware store. ~ John Sandford

Hey, fuck you," Lucas said. "What!" Pole started to move at Lucas, but saw something in Lucas's eyes that made him take a step back. Bell Wood got between them and Lucas growled, "Stay away from me, asshole. ~ John Sandford

Lucas lifted his head to look around and saw that dozens of people were dead or wounded; and that cops were flowing in from everywhere, that fifteen civilians were filming the chaos with their iPhones, that two TV crews were already working it, and that people everywhere were screaming in pain . . . He and Bowden knelt next to Jubek and Jubek's eyes were open and he said, "Hurt," and Lucas could hear more clearly now and said, "Hang on," and Jubek almost laughed and said, "I'm trying, dumbshit. Get me something . . . ~ John Sandford

LUCAS LOOKED AT HIS WATCH: getting late. He walked down the hall, saw Shrake on the phone at his desk, went that way. Shrake saw him coming, held up a finger, said, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, send me the paper. Okay. I gotta go." He hung up and said, "You're quivering." "You got some time?" "Ah . . . no. Not if you want me to keep pushing the Jackson thing," Shrake said. "All right. Where's Jenkins?" Lucas asked. "He's getting his oil changed," Shrake said. "He's . . ." "No, no, not that," Shrake said. "He was going down to a Rapid Oil Change, getting the oil changed in his car. ~ John Sandford

And he still had those two big nuts in his pocket that he'd picked up from the Purdys' barn workshop, the one with the green-and-yellow overspray on the floor, a green-and-yellow spray that didn't match the hard green and yellow of the John Deere, but did match the green and yellow of fair fire hydrants . . . and those nuts in his pocket. Why would you need a whole bag of big nuts, but no bolts? You wouldn't - unless they were shrapnel. And that nagging intuition he'd had by the Varied Industries building: he'd been walking by fire hydrants all morning, the same yellow and green as the overspray on the Purdys' barn floor. A bomb. The Purdys had built a bomb. The farm kid who'd been brain-injured by IEDs in Iraq had built himself an IED. A bomb disguised as a fire hydrant that was probably standing on the Concourse, right where the candidates would be marching by, right on the curb. ~ John Sandford

Cops and schoolteachers," Sloan said with satisfaction. "A cop and schoolteacher bar. The teachers drink like fish. The cops hit on the schoolteachers. One big happy family. ~ John Sandford

We ought to go up north. It'd be nice now, out on the lakes," said the taller one. "It's been too warm. Too many mosquitoes." The tall man laughed. 'Bullshit, mosquitoes. We're Indians, dickhead. ~ John Sandford

Mount Pleasant was an older town, where no two houses, standing side by side, seemed to come out of the same architectural style, with nineteenth-century Victorians up against pastel-colored postwar ramblers. Most of the houses had traditional flower gardens with marigolds and zinnias, and some with head-high sunflowers. ~ John Sandford

Volvos are fundamentally invisible. ~ John Sandford

Nuts don't come in bunches. Only grapes do. ~ John Sandford

BELL WOOD CAME OVER, a big bluff man with a mustache and a gap between his two square front teeth; he wore round gold-rimmed glasses like Teddy Roosevelt. He had a cup of coffee in his hand and nudged the leg of Lucas's chair. "Sorry about Pole. He can be an asshole." "I picked up on that," Lucas said, looking up. "You in decent shape with him? ~ John Sandford

If a Martian were watching our television shows, he'd conclude that guns were more common than hammers. They're not evil themselves--they're tools--but everywhere you go, bad people have them. It behooves the righteous to at least know how they work. ~ John Sandford

A diplomatic passport for a Tal Zahavi, with a current photo of Yael-1. The same birth date as in the other passport. The interior must have had fifty entry stamps for European and South American countries, plus the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. The woman traveled a lot. ~ John Sandford

So what killed him?" Virgil asked. "I'm thinking aliens."

You mean like, Canadians? ~ John Sandford

Flowers said, "I got two bottles of water in the car."
"Get them. And get your gun," Lucas said.
"The gun? You think?"
"No. I just like to see you wearing the fuckin' gun for a change," Lucas said. "C'mon, let's get moving. ~ John Sandford

MARLYS WAS A WOMAN of ordinary appearance, if seen in a supermarket or a library, dressed in homemade or Walmart dresses or slacks, a little too heavy, but fighting it, white-haired, ruddy-faced. In her heart, though, she housed a rage that knew no bounds. The rage fully possessed her at times, and she might be seen sitting in her truck at a stoplight, pounding the steering wheel with the palms of her hands, or walking through the noodle aisle at the supermarket with a teeth-baring snarl. She had frightened strangers, who might look at her and catch the flames of rage, quickly extinguished when Marlys realized she was being watched. The rage was social and political and occasionally personal, based on her hatred of obvious injustice, the crushing of the small and helpless by the steel wheels of American plutocracy. ~ John Sandford

She had to think seriously about Carver and Dannon. Dannon was well under control - he'd been her security man for four years, and for all four years had hungered for her. Not just for sex. He was in love with her. That was useful. Carver was cruder. He didn't want her total being, he just wanted to fuck her. If she wasn't available, somebody else would do. So her grip on him was more precarious. ~ John Sandford

Like the NRA says, it's better to have a machine gun and not need it than to need a machine gun and not have it. ~ John Sandford

They were shot with a shotgun and put in garbage bags and thrown under a bridge," Shrake said. "If it wasn't murder, it was a really weird accident. ~ John Sandford

love of money is the root of all evils.' Timothy, six-ten. ~ John Sandford

Even thinking was hard. ~ John Sandford

Coyotes don't eat dachshunds," Johnson said. "Dachshunds were bred to go down badger tunnels and drag the badgers out by their ass. A good-sized dachshund could weigh thirty pounds and has jaws like a crocodile. Old Dixie would straight-out fuck up a coyote." "Didn't know that," Virgil said. - ~ John Sandford

You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life. ~ John Sandford

LEONARD WAS A THICK, dark-haired man, Lucas's height but heavier, both in the arms and the gut. He was wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and yellow work boots. The scars around his pale, suspicious eyes and a withered nose made him into a brawler. ~ John Sandford

Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations. ~ John Sandford

I'm talking to a guy who says he was taken up in a flying saucer and had sexual experiments done on him - which, I got to say, is probably the only sexual experiments he's ever had done on him, that didn't involve a heifer. ~ John Sandford

Somewhere along the line, it occurred to him that he hadn't spoken to Virgil Flowers. He'd probably taken the day off, and knowing Flowers, he'd done it in a boat. The thing about Flowers was, in Lucas's humble opinion, you could send him out for a loaf of bread and he'd find an illegal bread cartel smuggling in heroin-saturated wheat from Afghanistan. Either that, or he'd be fishing in a muskie tournament, on government time. You had to keep an eye on him. ~ John Sandford

Schiffer recoiled: "Oh, Jesus Christ, Taryn, don't give me a heart attack," she said, clutching at her chest. "Remember: no sense of humor. How many times do I have to tell you that: No sense of humor. Humor can get you in all kinds of shit and we've got this won, if we don't get funny. ~ John Sandford

You've got pretty good taste." She pulled out a suit, looked at it, put it back, pulled out another. "I can remember, you always wore good suits, good-looking suits, even before you were rich."
"I like suits," he said. "They feel good. I like Italian suits, actually. I've had a couple of British suits, and they were okay, but they felt ... constructed. Like I was wearing a building. But the Italians - they know how to make a suit."
"Ever try French suits?"
"Yeah, three or four times. They're okay, but a little ... sharp-looking. They made me feel like a watch salesman."
"How about American suits?"
:Efficient," he said. "Do the job; don't feel like much. You always wear an American suit if you don't want people to notice you. ~ John Sandford

copy of an aerial photo from the engineering department. ~ John Sandford

THE BACK DOOR, what was left of it, scraped open again, and they could hear boot steps on the stoop, and Lucas said, "This is it, Grace. Who's going after Bowden? Give me something that'll give you a break." She shook her head. "Fuck you. ~ John Sandford

Not a good idea," Lucas said. "I agree, but that's what she's going to do. This Pole guy told her that he holds you responsible for the shooting of his agent." "Right." "Wanna know what she said?" Henderson asked. "Sure." "She said, and I quote, 'You'd probably be better off holding the sniper responsible, don't you think? I certainly would.'" "Good for her," Lucas said. "But this short-walk thing . . . I dunno." "Better than a long one," Lucas said. ~ John Sandford

O'Dell's driver was a broad man with a Korean War crew cut, his hair the color of rolled steel. A hatchet nose split basalt eyes, and his lips were dry and thick: a Gila monster's. ~ John Sandford

What!" Schiffer blurted, not a question. Lucas had been watching Carver and Dannon again, and again, their eyes were blank; if they'd been lizards, Lucas thought, a nictitating membrane might have dropped slowly across them. ~ John Sandford

Carol Druze Was A Stone Killer. ~ John Sandford

Does a chicken have lips? ~ John Sandford

THIS WOULD BE the first tricky part, they knew. They'd come in on the south side of the fairgrounds, between the swine and sheep barns. There would be cops all over the place - though fewer at night - and they wanted to get to the machinery grounds, where there were always a number of pickups parked. While they had the truck pass, it wouldn't stand a real check. If somebody called in the pass number, it'd show up as lost or stolen. ~ John Sandford

Personally, I'm a registered Democrat, and my wife has contributed to the campaigns of a number of Democratic candidates, including yours, I believe, though I have not. There's no politics in this, Ms. Grant. What there is, is a vicious sabotage attempt, which would have reduced Senator Smalls's reputation to tatters, and very probably a murder. So, if we could get back to the reason I'm here: you say you knew nothing of the pornography, and you didn't know Bob Tubbs? ~ John Sandford

The advanced interstellar culture operates on a barter system. Never saw that one coming. ~ John Sandford

The Times, whose editorial portentousness approached traumatic constipation, tried to suppress its glee under the bushel basket of feigned sadness that another civil servant had been caught in a sexual misadventure; they hadn't even bothered to use the word "alleged. ~ John Sandford

Lucas kicked back in his chair, and thought, Let's go to Sherlock Holmes. When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever was left, however improbable, must be the truth. Or something like that. ~ John Sandford

I don't know. He was hit hard. Bleeding out his mouth, bright red blood, so he probably took a hit to his lung. He was alive when they took him into the operating room . . ." Lucas gave him the details he had, then gave the phone to the highway patrolman, who knew Wood, and Wood confirmed Lucas's status. ~ John Sandford

the truck. Yael was waiting at the front bumper, and as he came up to her, a sheriff's patrol car turned off the road and onto the track and accelerated toward them. Virgil said to Yael, "He's been shot, but he'll live. For the time being, anyway. He says he doesn't know anything ~ John Sandford

WITH THEIR CASUAL ACQUIESCENCE to the DNA tests, Lucas was left stranded. He asked some perfunctory questions - where were you last night at one o'clock? (At our apartments.) Did anyone see you there? (No.) Any proof that you were there? (Made some phone calls, moved some documents on e-mail.) Can we see those? (Of course.) Did you know either Tubbs or Roman? (No.) Lucas walked away and made a call, asking them to wait, got hold of a crime-scene specialist, and made arrangements for Carver and Dannon to be DNA-typed. ~ John Sandford

Just about killed ourselves out there in the dark," Carver said. "He's gone. Put a few concrete blocks on top of him, just in case." "In case of what?" Taryn asked, fascinated in spite of herself. "Well . . . body gases," Carver said. "The ground was a little wet, you wouldn't want him popping up. ~ John Sandford

He was conservative, especially on the abortion issue, and he was death on taxes; on the other hand, he had a Clintonesque attitude about women, and even a sense of humor about his own peccadilloes. ~ John Sandford

Got here half an hour ago and had a look, eyeballin' it," Sawyer said. "It's murder, all right. Tell you something else - the sun went down, and it's as dark as the inside of a horses's ass out here."
"You're sure?"
"Well, I've never actually been inside a horses's ass. ~ John Sandford

Lucas's Colt .45 Gold Cup and Beretta 92F, and drove up ~ John Sandford

Lot of Irish in Mexico. The Mexican name, Obregon? It comes from O'Brien. ~ John Sandford

Got Hollow Points?" Another said: "Heavily Armed . . . and easily pissed." A third one: "Point and Click . . . means you're out of ammo. ~ John Sandford

Oh yeah, I heard you got born again.' she said. 'Which you needed since they fucked up the first time. ~ John Sandford

I'll bring pajamas " she said.
"Yeah? You have any idea how old I am?"
"Not nearly as old as you're gonna be by midnight. ~ John Sandford

The thing about Botox is that when you've had too much, you then have to fake reactions just to look human--and it's impossible to distinguish real fake reactions from fake fake reactions. ~ John Sandford

Her Pan-Cake makeup was cracking like a dried-out Dakota lake bed. ~ John Sandford

THE EXCHANGE KEPT LUCAS warm all the way out to the car. He'd jump off a high building before he betrayed Weather, but a little extracurricular flirtation kept the blood circulating; not that all of it went to the brain. ~ John Sandford

The aisles of the Varied Industries building had grown too coagulated, so Marlys led the girl around the building, the girl's legs churning to keep up. They came out directly behind the fire hydrant that they'd planted the night before, separated from it by the dense crowd. Marlys asked a tall man at the back, "Do you see them yet? ~ John Sandford

Cinnamon Girl" wasn't right for this day, for this time, for what was about to happen. If he were to have music, he thought, maybe Shostakovich, a few measures from the Lyric Waltz in Jazz Suite Number 2. Something sweet, yet pensive, with a taste of tragedy; Qatar was an intellectual, and he knew his music. ~ John Sandford

systems - power, propulsion, communication, life support - were ~ John Sandford

If the AG had been a lightbulb instead of a lawyer, he would have been about a twenty-watt. ~ John Sandford

Detective Virgil and Barlow [bomb-technician] arranged to meet at the Starbucks. Virgil got a grande hot chocolate, no-fat milk, no foam, no whipped cream, and Barlow got a venti latte with an extra shot. As they took a corner table, Virgil said, "Remind me not to stand next to you if you're handling a bomb. That much caffeine, you gotta be shakin' like a hundred-dollar belly dancer."
"At least I'm not drinking like a little girl," Barlow said. ~ John Sandford

Give me the goddamn names, Grace," Lucas said. "C'mon. Please. Talk to me. Save yourself." "Fuck you." - FORD CAME BACK, looked at Lucas, asked, "Get a name?" "Not unless it's 'Fuck you,'" Lucas said. ~ John Sandford

It's the way of the world, man. There are the worker bees, and the manager bees. The worker bees take care of the work, the manager bees take care of themselves. ~ John Sandford

When any worthwhile thing is done in the world, it's usually done by somebody weird. ~ John Sandford

The Minneapolis City Hall is not a pretty building. A pile of red granite, a sullen nineteenth-century Romanesque lump, it squats amid the glittering glass-and-steel towers of the loop like a wart poking through a diamond necklace. ~ John Sandford

bleeding heavily, her eyes flat with ~ John Sandford

comment. "Are you sure you've got the ~ John Sandford

These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt. ~ John Sandford

Don't give me any shit about that, Lucas - not with your history," Henderson said, irritated. "No matter what happens with me, I'll get her an impressive-sounding staff job in Washington, something involving Virginia agriculture and natural resources," Henderson said. "I'll buy her some top-end TV training, some good threads, lean on my friends for donations. A hot, female, law-and-order Democrat who carries a gun and has major experience in D.C.? Are you kiddin' me? That Tea Party asshole won't know what hit him. He'll be like Toto in the fuckin' tornado. ~ John Sandford

....there are as many nuts on the left as there are on the right, and in the long run, the lefties are probably more dangerous. ~ John Sandford

Well, I am becoming doddering and old but I have - I'm writing two books a year now. It's like 220,000 words or something like finished, and, honest to God, I can't do that. I really do need the help of, you know, other people working with me. ~ John Sandford

Everyone should have a hippie painter anarchist in their lives. It's the guys in silvered aviators with guns that you've got to be wary of. ~ John Sandford

Marlys was a sturdy woman in her fifties, white curls clinging to her scalp like vanilla frosting. She wore rimless glasses, a homemade red-checked gingham dress, and low-topped Nikes. Short-nosed and pale, she had a small pink mouth that habitually pursed in thought, or disapproval. ~ John Sandford

They both knew what they were thinking, though neither said it: Taryn Grant had what it took to be president. She had the business background, she understood economics and finance, she had the money wrapped up, she looked terrific, she had a mind that understood the necessary treacheries: a silken Machiavelli. ~ John Sandford