Rifle Quotes

He just didn't look like the kind of creep that would messily murder a woman in her hotel room; he looked like the kind of creep that could line her up in the sights of an assassins rifle without a shred of emotion. ~ Karen Marie Moning

You know, Sarah Palin is the Governor of Alaska, you know that. And she's a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association. So great, is what I'm thinking, another vice president that shoots a drinking buddy; just get ready. ~ David Letterman

A story: A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper; his hands remember the rifle. ~ Anthony Swofford

IT is not impossible that among the English readers of this book there may be one who in 1915 and 1916 was in one of those trenches that were woven like a web among the ruins of Monchy-au-Bois. In that case he had opposite him at that time the 73rd Hanoverian Fusiliers, who wear as their distinctive badge a brassard with ' Gibraltar ' inscribed on it in gold, in memory of the defence of that fortress under General Elliot; for this, besides Waterloo, has its place in the regiment's history.

At the time I refer to I was a nineteen-year-old lieutenant in command of a platoon, and my part of the line was easily recognizable from the English side by a row of tall shell-stripped trees that rose from the ruins of Monchy. My left flank was bounded by the sunken road leading to Berles-au-Bois, which was in the hands of the English ; my right was marked by a sap running out from our lines, one that helped us many a time to make our presence felt by means of bombs and rifle-grenades.

I daresay this reader remembers, too, the white tom-cat, lamed in one foot by a stray bullet, who had his headquarters in No-man's-land. He used often to pay me a visit at night in my dugout. This creature, the sole living being that was on visiting terms with both sides, always made on me an impression of extreme mystery. This charm of mystery which lay over all that belonged to the other side, to that danger zone full of unseen figures, is one of the strongest impressions that the wa ~ Ernst Junger

A man with a rifle is a citizen; a man without one is merely a subject. ~ Mark Horton

Every boy in a free country ought to be instructed in boxing, wrestling, and the use of weapons. Every young man ought to be drilled. Every householder ought, at least, to have a right to own a rifle, and should know how to make cartridges. ~ John Boyle O'Reilly

Paradoxically, that large screen in the cavernous, crowded
room creates intimacy. And violence is an intimate act. If you
are punching someone, or if you are pinpointing someone in
the telescope of your rifle, you are as close to your victim as to
a lover, trying to think like them, anticipate their moves, overcome
them. ~ D.K. Holm

[The] National Rifle Association is always arguing that the Second Amendment determines the right to bear arms. But I think it really is the people's right to bear arms in a militia. The NRA thinks it protects their right to have Teflon-coated bullets. But that's not the original understanding. ~ Robert Bork

I was a model Marine.. My rifle was always clean, uniform always starched, and the shoes always shined. I guess that's how I became so neat-sort of the Felix Unger of baseball roomates. Blame it on the Marines. ~ Jay Johnstone

Here, let me help." Nick stepped behind her, reached around her body, and placed his hands over hers, steadying the rifle against her shoulder. At his touch, unusual tingling sensations coursed through her. "Look down the sights to the target," he murmured in her ear. His finger pressed over hers, guiding her movement. Her whole body warmed at his closeness. Too aware of him, she couldn't concentrate. She just closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. The noise of the shot reverberated in her ears. The recoil of the gun sent her staggering back into Nick. His arms tightened around her. She lowered the rifle. "You missed," Nick's voice teased in her ear. Elizabeth's heart raced. She relaxed against his chest, loving the feel of his strong arms around her. ~ Debra Holland

Ashamed, shrugging a little, and then shivering, he took his bags and went out. The cold of the air seemed to lift him bodily. The moon was in the sky.
On the slope he began to run, he could not help it. Just as he reached the road, where his car seemed to sit in the moonlight like a boat, his heart began to give off tremendous explosions like a rifle, bang bang bang.
He sank in fright onto the road, his bags falling about him. He felt as if all this had happened before. He covered his heart with both hands to keep anyone from hearing the noise it made.
But nobody heard it.
(Death of a Traveling Salesman ~ Eudora Welty

I've always tried to play golf with a golf club. I have a hard time driving with my rifle. I mean, 18 is really narrow ... I have no problem with the course, except for the tee shot on 18. ~ Jack Nicklaus

I stalked around the edge of the wood, crouching low, holding my breath. My attention was microscopically fierce. I'd become a thing of eyes and will alone. Mabel held her wings out from her sides, her head snaking, reptilian, eyes glowing. It felt like I was holding the bastard offspring of a flaming torch and an assault rifle. ~ Helen Macdonald

The muse of invention handed me a rifle and I shot a white bear who sat down and said: Ah. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Does it scare you?" said Clare. "Living in a house with guns?"
Hunter smiled. "It's not like I wake up in the middle of the night to find them staring down at me."
"Shut up." She gave him a light shove. "No, I mean, are you ever worried you'll accidentally get shot?"
"You mean, when I catch the assault rifle raiding the refrigerator? Like maybe it'll turn on me?"
Her breath caught again. "You have an assault rifle in your house?"
"Sure. It's partial to lime Jell-O. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Stupid deer," I said, embarrassed about being startled. "We need a ladder."
"I think they're easier to shoot with a rifle."
"I'm not talking about the deer," I said, hitting Milo on the back of his shoulder. "We need a ladder to look over the wall."
"Or a catapult," Milo said seriously. ~ Obert Skye

I like going to rifle and pistol clubs and joining them in target shooting. I also share the same respect for individual initiative and love of family. ~ Nan Hayworth

When I was a young kid, almost every other show on television was a Western. And some of them were part of my childhood, I loved them. Like, Rifle Man, I absolutely adored. So, I think everything comes in a cycle. ~ Tony Todd

A man holding an assault rifle ordered me out into the hallway. There was a whole tactical assault team standing behind him.
"This is so flattering," OWEN said in my ear as I exited the room. "Look how many guns they brought. ~ Seth Fried

I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing I've ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it's time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. ~ Malcolm X

We're keeping the pregnancy quiet for now, Lou," Knox told him. "We need you to do the same."
Lou lifted his hand, as if to pledge an oath. "You can be sure that I will do nothing to threaten the upcoming birth of our little Luc - "
"We are not calling the baby Lucifer," growled Harper, fists clenched.
Lou leaned toward Knox and said quietly, "Notice the mood swing? The stats don't lie."
Harper let out a long breath. "Why are you even here?"
Lou lifted a brow. "Expecting someone else?"
"Preferably someone who doesn't come uninvited, rifle through our kitchen, and help themselves to stuff. It's like having a stray dog turn up all the time."
Lou sniffed at her. "That's unfair. I don't shit on your floor. ~ Suzanne Wright

Danny Dietz died right there in my arms. I don't know how quickly hearts break, but that nearly broke mine ... I had to leave him or else die out here with him. But I knew one thing was certain. I still had my rifle and I was not alone, and neither was Danny, a devout Roman Catholic. I left him with God. ~ Marcus Luttrell

Sitka Charley started. There had been more than one shot, yet there was but one other rifle in the party. He gave a fleeting glance at the men who lay so quietly, smiled viciously at the wisdom of the trail, and hurried on to meet the Men of the Yukon. ~ Jack London

The truth is that any good modern rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the man behind the gun. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Back around the counter to fetch my rifle. Rifle, sidearm, knife, a couple of flash grenades. And one more thing, the most essential weapon in my arsenal: a heart full of rage. ~ Rick Yancey

She thought she should take a moment to pray. But, as she was holding a loaded rifle, conventional prayer did not seem entirely suitable. Sister Peg hoped that God would help her, but it was her belief that He much preferred for people to attend to themselves. Life was a test; it was up to you to pass it or not. She raised the gun to her clavicle and angled one eye down the length of the barrel. ~ Justin Cronin

I shall yield a rifle of fury, loaded with the justice of time and the raging storm of my soul! ~ Quoleena Sbrocca

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier. ~ Rudyard Kipling

If the ghost that haunts the towns of Ypres and Arras and Albert is the staturory British Tommy, slogging with rifle and pack through its ruined streets to this well-documented destiny 'up the line', then the ghost of Boulogne and Etaples and Rouen ought to be a girl. She's called Elsie or Gladys or Dorothy, her ankles are swollen, her feet are aching, her hands reddened and rough. She has little money, no vote, and has almost forgotten what it feels like to be really warm. She sleeps in a tent. Unless she has told a diplomatic lie about her age, she is twenty-three. She is the daughter of a clergyman, a lawyer or a prosperous businessman, and has been privately educated and groomed to be a 'lady'. She wears the unbecoming outdoor uniform of a VAD or an army nurse. She is on active service, and as much a part of the war as Tommy Atkins. ~ Lyn Macdonald

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle. ~ Sitting Bull

One generation after another falls like honeybees upon this memorable forest, rifle its sweets, pack themselves with vital memories, and when the theft is consummated depart again into life richer, but poorer also. The forest, indeed, they have possessed, from that day forward it is theirs dissolubly, and they will never return to walk in it at night in the fondest of their dreams, and use it forever in their books and pictures. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Hitler derived several things from his experience and achievements in World War I, without which his rise to power in 1933 would have been at the least problematical, and at the most inconceivable. Hitler survived the war as a combat soldier - a rifle carrier - in a frontline infantry regiment. The achievement was an extraordinary one based on some combination of near-miraculous luck and combat skill. The interpretive fussing over whether or not Hitler was a combat soldier because he spent most of the war in the part of the regiment described as regimental headquarters can be laid to rest as follows: Any soldier in an infantry regiment on an active front in the west in World War I must be considered to have been a combat soldier. Hitler's authorized regimental weapon was the Mauser boltaction, magazine-fed rifle. This gives a basic idea of what Hitler could be called upon to do in his assignment at the front. As a regimental runner, he carried messages to the battalions and line companies of the regiment, and the more important ones had to be delivered under outrageously dangerous circumstances involving movement through artillery fire and, particularly later in the war, poison gas and the omnipresent rifle fire of the skilled British sniper detachments.
--Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 96 ~ Russel H.S. Stolfi

Unlike the men her brothers preferred, this one had no rifle pressed to its shoulder, no hand grenade about to be thrown, but stood instead with his arms extended from his sides, palms out. His head was slightly raised, as if whatever he confronted was still at some distance, and was larger than just another man. His name was Steve. Steve Stevens. And he was a scout, sent ahead. Alone. She moved him through the sand, up over the boulders and hills that were the arms and legs of the bear. John Keane, leaning over his knees, watched the ~ Alice McDermott

I always imagined rape as this violent scene of a woman walking alone down a dark alley and getting mugged and beaten by some masked criminal. Rape was an angry man forcing himself inside a damsel in distress. I would not carry the trauma of a cliché rape victim. I would not shriek in the midst of my slumber with night terrors. I would not tremble at the sight of every dark haired man or the mention of Number 1's name. I would not even harbor ill will towards him. My damage was like a cigarette addiction- subtle, seemingly innocent, but everlasting and inevitably detrimental.
Number 1 never opened his screen door to furious crowds waving torches and baseball bats. Nobody punched him out in my honor. The Nightfall crowd never socially ostracized him. Even the ex-boyfriend who'd second handedly fused the entire fiasco continued to mingle with him in drug circles. Everybody continued with business as usual. And when I told my parents I lost my virginity against my will, unconscious on a bathroom floor, Carl did not erupt in fury and demand I give him all I knew about his whereabouts so he could greet him with a rifle. Mom blankly shrugged and mumbled, "Oh, that's too bad," and drifted into the kitchen as if I'd received a stubbed toe rather than a shredded hymen.
Everyone in my life took my rape as lightly as a brief thunderstorm that might have been frightening when it happened, but was easy to forget about. I adopted that mentality as the foundation of my sex life ~ Maggie Georgiana Young

Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometres away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, 'love' is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and strangely enough, not many meatbags would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose... against statistically long odds... ~ HK-47

My object is to live in a place that does not call itself 'the community with a heart.' I want one of those godforsaken towns where all the young people leave and the rest sit on the porch with a rifle across their knees. ~ Florence King

Can you fall in love through a rifle scope? ~ Peter Heller

You have to hit it," she told herself. "This could be life or death." She positioned her rifle and made herself comfortable on the rock. Chief had disappeared. A hawk screed high overhead. She ~ Lauraine Snelling

The sling is to a rifle what the holster is to a pistol. If you have a sling, chances are you will keep the rifle with you. If there is no sling present, you will set the rifle down. When you are at the absolutely farthest point away from the rifle that you can possibly get, you'll need it. ~ Clint Smith

For two years, all you have to do is go where they tell you, stay behind your rifle, and kill and not be killed. It's simple, but simple isn't the same as easy. ~ John Scalzi

There is more value in placing a flower in a rifle barrel than making war. As Jimi Hendrix used to say, musical notes have more importance than bullets. ~ Carlos Santana

At last, somebody in line steps forward. "I can commit," he says. He's a tall, lean young man with a rifle slung over his back.
"What's your name?" Chris asks.
"Andrew," he replies. "And I'm in."
Chris nods. A few other guys step forward and, after a few moments, the entire crowd of ex-POWs takes one step, signifying their decision. My chest swells with pride – pride for Chris's leadership, pride for the people willing to give their lives to take down Omega.
It's a rush. ~ Summer Lane

Very close by the CMS shops, hidden about a quarter mile away in the woods, was the prison's rifle range. Correctional officers could spend quality time with their firearms down there, and the hammering of multiple rounds was typical background noise during our workdays. There was something unsettling about toiling away for a prison while listening to your jailers practice shooting you. ~ Piper Kerman

he guessed this was a Welsh regiment. The flare died. Walter leaped to his feet and ran, heading for the German side. The sentry would be unable to see for a few seconds, his vision spoiled by the flare. Walter ran faster than he ever had, expecting the rifle to fire again at any moment. In half a minute he came to the British wire and dropped gratefully to his knees. He crawled rapidly forward through a gap. Another flare went up. ~ Ken Follett

Some people fast, some people go on a cruise or visit a day spa. I get out in the woods with a rifle or a bow. That's my release. ~ Chris Pratt

He looked at me very gravely, and put his arms around my neck. I felt his heart beating like the heart of a dying bird, shot with someone's rifle ... ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Dr. King's flouting of the law does not justify the flouting by others of the law, but it is a terrifying thought that, most likely, the cretin who leveled his rifle on the head of Martin Luther King, may have absorbed the talk, so freely available, about the supremacy of the individual conscience, such talk as Martin Luther King, God rest his soul, had so widely, and so indiscriminately, made. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

When you're attacking a router on the internet, and you're doing it remotely, it's like trying to shoot the moon with a rifle. Everything has to happen exactly right. Every single variable has to be controlled and precisely accounted for. And that's not possible to do when you have limited knowledge of the target you're attacking. ~ Edward Snowden

(General Wetjoen talking about the Boer War)Let him come! I have seen them come before
at Margesfontein, Spion Kiopje, Modder River. Stepping into battle, left right left right, waving their silly swords, so afraid they couldn't show off how brave they was, and with mine rifle I kills them so easy! ~ Eugene O'Neill

The judge sat that animal bareback like an indian and rode with his grip and his rifle perched on the withers and he looked about him with the greatest satisfaction in the world, as if everything had turned out just as he planned and the day could not have been finer. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Gribshin considered what he had just seen. He knew it was important. It belonged to the future, he was sure, but was it his future. He too was pleased by the sound the lock made as it closed: it was something predictive. In the echoing tintinnabulation of the lock's components colliding hard against each other were conjured the sonances of rifle shots and beyond them smoky images of milling crowds. The sounds and images vanished without revealing to Gribshin exactly what they promised. ~ Ken Kalfus

Take this rifle, kid. Gimme that guitar. ~ Bobby Bare

The soldiers in their full dress uniforms were already miserable, some from the heat, others from envy. "We've got the bloody ugliest uniforms in the Empire," one of the Rifles muttered, casting a glance at the infinitely more splendid dress of the nearby Hussars. "I hate this gloomy dark green."
"Pretty target you'd make, crawling forward of the front lines in bright red and gold," another Rifle replied in a scornful undertone. "You'd have your arse shot off."
"I don't care. Women like red coats."
"You'd choose a woman over not having your arse shot off?"
"Wouldn't you?"
The other man's silence conceded the point. ~ Lisa Kleypas

ot everyone liked Albert. Not everyone was happy that he had become the most important person around. Lots of people were jealous that Albert had a girl to clean his house and the porcelain basin where he did his business at night when he didn't want to go outside to the only actual outhouse in Per-dido Beach. And that he could afford to send his clothes to be washed in the fresh water of the ironically named Lake Evian.
And there were definitely people who didn't like working for Albert, having to do what he said or go hungry.
Albert traveled with a bodyguard now. The bodyguard's name was Jamal. Jamal carried an automatic rifle over his shoulder. He had a massive hunting knife in his belt. And a club that was an oak chair leg with spikes driven through it to make a sort of mace.
Unlike everyone else Albert carried no weapon himself. Jamal was weapon enough. ~ Michael Grant

Seek justice from tyrannical governments not with your hat in your hands but with a rifle in your fist. ~ Emiliano Zapata

There's a lathered sorrel stallion running through the Joshua trees and a young man in the saddle with his coat tails in the breeze. He's got a six gun on his right hip and a rifle at his knees and he's dealing in a game that he can't win. ~ Charlie Daniels

Once I made weapons carved from stone, I tied the weight to a wooden handle, a club to break the bones of my enemy.

Then I became wiser...
and sharpened the stone to a point and then fastened it to a stick; my arrow. I bent wood and hitched string to it; my bow. I kill my enemy with skill

Then I became wiser...
and made weapons forged from steel and took care to sharpen the blade of my sword. I kill my enemy with a stroke.

Then I became wiser...
and made the rifle that would, by exploding gunpowder, shoot balls of lead faster than the eye could see. I kill my enemy with but the pull of a trigger.

Then I became wiser...
and I built flying machine that could transport bombs to drop over the homes of my enemy. I kill my enemy from the sky.

Then I became wiser...
and created the drone, now I can guide a plane by remote control from one country and kill my enemy in another. I am a proficient killer

Then I became wiser...
and I found a way to split the atom and found the power of God hidden within. I kill the ground, scorch the sky, pollute the wind and kill my enemy with the push of a button.

Then I became wiser...
And I found that there is nothing more foolish than a "Wise Man of War ~ Tonny K. Brown

Don't be a damned ammunition wagon. Be a rifle! ~ Carl Rogers

We'd be safer with musket in a safe town than with an assault rifle in a "without rule of law" world. That may not be sexy, but it's the truth. ~ Michael Mabee

It is the man on the ground with his rifle who ultimately wins the war. ~ Bruce H. Norton

Neat rooms were easy to rifle through and search undetected because it was simple to put carefully placed things exactly where they'd been. But messes, on the other hand, were difficult to recreate. ~ Stephanie Garber

I was raised on the struggle of elders - iron collars, severed feet, the rifle of dirty Harriet, and down through the years, the Muslims and regal Malcolm. But mostly what I saw around me was rank dishonor: cable and Atari plugged into every room, juvenile parenting, niggers sporting kicks with price tags that looked like mortgage bills. The Conscious among us knew the whole race was going down, that we'd freed ourselves from slavery and Jim Crow but not the great shackling of minds. The hoppers had no picture of the larger world. We thought all our battles were homegrown and personal, but, like an evil breeze at our back, we felt invisible hands at work, like someone else was still tugging at levers and pulling strings. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles. ~ Jeff Cooper

NOW FIVE DAYS into its voyage, the Lusitania made its way toward Britain alone, with no escort offered or planned, and no instruction to take the newly opened and safer North Channel route - this despite the fact that the ship carried a valuable cache of rifle cartridges and desperately needed shrapnel shells. ~ Erik Larson

Abruptly, he wheeled Shadow into a full turn, stopped, and yanked his rifle out of the sheath on his saddle. ~ Joanna Jordan

Why the rifle? Everybody knows you can't shoot.
Who were these everybodies and would they like to stand in front of me, preferably within ten feet, so I could discuss this issue in greater detail. ~ Ilona Andrews

The idea that hunting is one against one is ludicrous. It's one animal versus the hunter, the manufacturer of the rifle, the bullet maker, the designer and manufacturer of the telescopic sight, the auto manufacturer who made the car the hunter got to the edge of the wild in, the maker of his waterproof shoes, the various manufacturers of his mittens, glasses, overcoat
and that's only the beginning of the list. The "sportsman" who shoots an animal should then make a speech, like the actor who wins an Oscar does, thanking the multitudes behind the scenes who made this "victory" possible. ~ Dick Cavett

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. ~ James Nicoll

Legend says Gabriel's trumpet will sound the last judgment. I do the same sort of thing with my rifle. ~ Jack Coughlin

I lifted my rifle and peered through the military scope at a snowroughened landscape, scanning the dead cornstalks and winter-stripped trees for wild boar. ~ Eleni Kounalakis

Edward still had the rifle up, sighted on Titus. Aikensen seemed frozen, standing there with the bloody knife. "Put it down, blondie, right now, or she's dead." "Edward." "Anita," he said. His voice sounded like it always did. We both knew he could drop Titus, but if the man's finger twitched while he died, I died, too. Choices. "Do it," I said. He pulled the trigger. Titus jerked back against the bars. Blood splattered over my face. A glob of something thicker than blood slid down my cheek. I breathed in shallow gasps. Titus slumped along the bars, gun still gripped in his hands. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

According to Teleology, each organism is like a rifle bullet fired straight at a mark; according to Darwin, organisms are like grapeshot of which one hits something and the rest fall wide.
For the teleologist an organism exists because it was made for the conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism exists because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able to persist in the conditions in which it is found.
Teleology implies that the organs of every organism are perfect and cannot be improved; the Darwinian theory simply affirms that they work well enough to enable the organism to hold its own against such competitors as it has met with, but admits the possibility of indefinite improvement. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

My spiritual pain is unbearable. I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people's lives, then can it be that I a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths? ~ Mikhail Kalashnikov

My dad, Frank Addison Albini, was a terrific shot with a rifle and had generally excellent hunting skills. While my dad loved hunting and fishing, he didn't romanticize them. He was filling the freezer, not intellectualizing some caveman impulse or proving his worth as a real man. ~ Steve Albini

Why, given all the information possessed by the Admiralty about U-20; given the Admiralty's past willingness to provide escorts to inbound ships or divert them away from trouble; given that the ship carried a vital cargo of rifle ammunition and artillery shells; given that Room 40's intelligence prompted the obsessive tracking and protection of the HMS Orion; given that U-20 had sunk three vessels in the Lusitania's path; given Cunard chairman Booth's panicked Friday morning visit to the navy's Queenstown office; given that the new and safer North Channel route was available; and given that passengers and crew alike had expected to be convoyed to Liverpool by the Royal Navy - the question remains, ~ Erik Larson

Once he reached the farm he followed a barely used dirt road that led towards the sandstone cliffs. He heard the dog scrabbling across the rocky ground. The huffling of her breath. Some of the rocks were quite large and he turned and watched her stumble into them. In terrain like this she could easily break a leg and yet she lurched on, determined to find him. When she finally reached him she touched his leg with her nose, before settling down a few feet away, blind head looking out of over the dry Limpopo below. He wished he could pluck out her eyes and hold them in his hands like marbles. Rub them together, make thunder, bring rain. Instead he nudged the safety catch off his rifle and shot her. ~ Lisa Fugard

You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass. ~ Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting"


I tell her I love her like not killing
or ten minutes of sleep
beneath the low rooftop wall
on which my rifle rests.

I tell her in a letter that will stink,
when she opens it,
of bolt oil and burned powder
and the things it says.

I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand,
that war is just us
making little pieces of metal
pass through each other. ~ Kevin C. Powers

The shoot-to-kill order came through at zero one fifteen, relayed over a satellite radio. It'd been just three hours since the two-man reconnaissance team had reported the sighting.
They lay in a shallow dugout on a windblown ridge, the leeward slope falling away steeply to an impassable boulder field. A desert-issue tarp all but covered the hole, protected from view on the flanks by thorny scrub. Shivering, they blew into their bunched trigger-finger mitts. The daytime temperature had dropped twenty degrees or more, and fine sleet was melting on their blackened faces.
Darren Proctor extended the folded stock of his L115A3 sniper rifle. He split the legs of the swivel bi-pod and aligned the swivel cheek piece with the all-weather scope. Flipping open the lens cap, he glassed the terrain cast a muted green by the night vision. The tree line was sparse, a smattering of pines and cedars shuddering in the biting wind. Glimpsing movement on a scree slope fifty metres or so beyond, he focused in. The eyes of a striped hyena shone like glow sticks. He watched as the scavenger ripped at the carcass of an ibex or wild sheep. A second later it sniffed the air, ears pricked, and scampered off. ~ Gary Haynes

screamed all around him. Luke tossed his empty rifle away and pulled his handgun. He fired down the trench on his own position - it was overrun with enemies. A line of them were running this way. More came sliding, falling, jumping over the wall. Where were his guys? Was anyone still alive? He killed the closest man with a shot to the face. The head exploded like a cherry tomato. He grabbed the man by his tunic and held him up as a shield. The headless man was light, and Luke was raging with adrenaline - it was if the corpse ~ Jack Mars

Look, I probably shouldn't tell someone holding a high-powered semiautomatic rifle this, but you're really starting to get on my nerves. ~ Rick Yancey

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched. ~ Ida B. Wells

What the hell just happened?" Jesper asked. He was leaning against the railing, his rifle beside him. His hair was mussed, his pupils dilated. He seemed almost drunk, or like he'd just rolled out of someone's bed. He always had that look after a fight. Helvar was bent over the railing, vomiting. Not a sailor, apparently. At some point they'd need to shackle his legs again.
"We were ambushed," Wylan said from his perch on the forecastle deck. He had his sleeve pushed up and was running his fingers over the red spot where Nina had seen to his wound.
Jesper shot Wylan a withering glare. "Private tutors from the university, and that's what this kid comes up with? 'We were ambushed?'"
Wylan reddened. "Stop calling me kid. We're practically the same age."
"You're not going to like the other names I come up with for you. I know we were ambushed. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Then, Zil and a half dozen of his crew swaggered into the plaza from the far side. Astrid clenched her jaw. Would the crowd turn on them? She almost hoped so. People thought because she wouldn't let Sam go after Zil she must not really despise the Human Crew's Leader. That was wrong. She hated Zil. Hated everything he had done and everything he had tried to do.
Edilio moved quickly between Zil and a few of the boys who had started toward him, sticks and knives at the ready.
Zil's kids were armed with knives and bats, and so were those who wanted to take them on. Edilio was armed with an assault rifle.
Astrid hated that this was what life so often came down to: my weapon is bigger than your weapon.
If Sam were here it would be about his hands. Everyone had either seen what Sam could do, or heard the stories retold in vivid detail. No one challenged Sam. ~ Michael Grant

When I met him, he hadn't eaten for days, and lived in a rathole. But his rifle was clean and he had lots of ammunition. Whenever he heard shooting he ran towards it. If it was workers shooting at priests, state officials, capitalists, or cops, he'd empty his rifle as fast as he could fill it. But if two groups of workers ever shot at each other, he'd risk his life by standing between them and shouting, "When workers kill each other, there is no more reason to live! Kill me from both sides."
-- Luisa Nachalo ~ Sophia Nachalo

We're not in Khlong Prem Prison yet. So let's assume we're winning.
But inwardly, Anderson wonders. There are too many variables in play, and it makes him nervous. He remembers a time in Missouri when the Grahamites rioted. There had been tension, some small speeches, and then it had simply erupted in field burning. No one had seen the violence coming. Not a single intelligence officer had anticipated the cauldron boiling beneath the surface.
Anderson had ended up perched atop a grain silo, choking on the smoke of HiGro fields going up in sheets of flame, firing steadily at rioters on the ground with a spring rifle he'd salvaged from a slow-moving security guard, and all the while he had wondered how everyone had missed the signs. They lost the facility because of that blindness. And now it is the same. A sudden eruption, and the surprise of realizing that the world he understands is not the one he actually inhabits. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

I learned how to fire a sniper rifle, which I'm sure will be useful at some point. ~ Paul Giamatti

How solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never the missionary - but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history over; you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey - I mean he arrives after the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin of both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up an old grant that covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance committee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the newspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands turn to and build a church and a jail - and ~ Mark Twain

And where were you when my mate was
shooting ferals with a damn sniper rifle?" he demanded, exhaustion adding a bite to his words.
Ryuu gave him a flat look. "Holding her ammunition. ~ Alanea Alder

Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day - the description was, 'Never shot. Dropped once. ~ Roy Blunt

One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep. ~ Anton Chekhov

It would be nice, after this was over, to take a long raft trip. Maybe Jen and I could paddle through Westwater and its ass-clenching rapids, then lounge on the banks in Moab for a week or two. That would be heaven: a raft trip with a beer in my hand instead of a rifle. I ~ Erik Storey

My mind is like a little house,
My peers break into.
They rearrange my furniture,
And the cabinets rifle through.
They throw things out;
They put things in,
And erase the writing on the wall,
And by the time that they walk out,
It's not my mind at all. ~ Margo T. Rose

People often ask me how I feel about my invention being used to kill people every day and the AK being a common weapon of ethnic conflicts. I want to make it clear that I created my assault rifle to protect my country. You can blame politicians for its spreading out of control on a global scale. ~ Mikhail Kalashnikov

She stepped out of reach. "Go put on a shirt and get your mind out of bed."
"Impossible with you around."
"Pretend I'm holding a rifle. In fact, pretend I have you in the crosshairs."
Janvier sighed, rubbing at a jaw shadowed by morning stubble. "I love it when you talk dirty. ~ Nalini Singh

A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority. ~ Brendan Behan

It's a mad, mad world when your best friend is a dog and your second-best friend is an automatic rifle, but such was life in the Aze. ~ John Green

Gay People can't do this. Women shouldn't be able to that. But touch my semiautomatic rifle and you're attacking my rights. ~ Remi Kanazi

You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass. ~ Isoroku Yamamoto