Robert Crais Quotes

There's the Hollywood sign; there's Griffith Observatory; there's the great, amazing Los Angeles Basin. It's 465 square miles of insanity and the best food on the planet. ~ Robert Crais

Efficiency and focus are the keys to success. ~ Robert Crais

Writing a book is a long and difficult process for me. I'm a slow writer, so I spend the year with Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in my head. I was thinking about this the other day. I wrote the first book in 1987. Literally every day since that time, Elvis and Joe have been in my head. They're always there. I started these guys because I like them. ~ Robert Crais

Everyone knows dogs. Most people love dogs. I think most American families probably have a dog, but I don't think people really realize or understand just how wonderful and special dogs are. ~ Robert Crais

My books come to me in images, and sometimes the image is at the beginning of the book, and sometimes it's simply a flash somewhere in the middle. ~ Robert Crais

I had wanted to be a novelist for so long, but I didn't have a story. That story came from the death of my father, and wrestling with how to help my mother. Writing it allowed me to work through my fears, frustrations and desires. I wanted control over the situation. And I wasn't sure I would have any in real life. ~ Robert Crais

Scott let Maggie out the rear, clipped her lead, and hurried to catch up as Sims and another Fugitive dick brought out Estelle Rolley. Rolley looked like a walking skeleton. Street officers called this "the meth diet." Cowly ~ Robert Crais

Cole's interest was a tell. He wasn't expressing casual curiosity. He was all business, and carried himself like a man with a need to know. Scott didn't like the way Cole's friends were staring, like a couple of lions waiting to pounce. "I'd rather speak alone." "We're good." Cole ~ Robert Crais

I write characters and stories that move me, and I write from the heart. ~ Robert Crais

I don't think about the gender of my readers or about reader expectations. I'm frankly scared to. I figured out a long time ago that if I tried to guess the audience, it would be like me trying to guess which stocks to buy. ~ Robert Crais

The birds scratch the seed out of the feeder, then fly down to the deck to eat the seed. They know there's a cat, but still they go down to pick at the seed. When you think about it, people are often like this, too. ~ Robert Crais

That dog is a Marine! ~ Robert Crais

These dogs are not machines, Goddammit. They are alive! They are living, feeling, warm-blooded creatures of God, and they will love you with all their hearts! They will love you when your wives and husbands sneak behind your backs. They will love you when your ungrateful misbegotten children piss on your graves! They will see and witness your greatest shame, and will not judge you! These dogs will be the truest and best partners you can ever hope to have, and they will give their lives for you. And all they ask, all they want or need, all it costs YOU to get ALL of that, is a simple word of kindness. Goddammit to hell, the ten best men I know aren't worth the worst dog here, and neither are any of you, and I am Dominick Goddamned Leland, and I am never wrong! ~ Robert Crais

Jonathan Green sat in one of the leather director's chairs across from my desk and the two lesser attorneys went to the couch. Truly stayed on his feet. The videographer noticed the Pinocchio clock on the wall, then hustled around to the opposite side of my desk so that he could get both me and the clock in the frame. The Pinocchio clock has eyes that move side to side as it tocks. Photogenic. Like Green. ~ Robert Crais

Criminals did not have friends. They had associates, suppliers, fences, whores, sugar daddies, enablers, dealers, collaborators, co-conspirators, victims and bosses, any of whom they might rat out and none of whom could be trusted. ~ Robert Crais

Some of us find our way with a single light to guide us; others lose themselves even when the star field is as sharp as a neon ceiling. Ethics may not be situational, but feelings are. We learn to adjust, and, over time, the stars we use to guide ourselves come to reside within rather than without. ~ Robert Crais

I had a big Akita, Yoshi, who was fabulous. I loved him. We lost him when he was 12, and I've never been able to replace him. Normally, most people lose a pet and get another and keep going on. But it just felt wrong to me; it felt disloyal. ~ Robert Crais

I love L.A. It's a great, sprawling, spread-to-hell city that protects us by its sheer size. Four hundred sixty-five square miles. Eleven million beating hearts in Los Angeles County, documented and not. Eleven million. What are the odds? The girl raped beneath the Hollywood sign isn't your sister, the boy back-stroking in a red pool isn't your son, the splatter patterns on the ATM machine are sourceless urban art. We're safe that way. When it happens it's going to happen to someone else. ~ Robert Crais

The begging snapped into a sharp muffled shriek, just one, just the one terrible muted cry. Krista couldn't move. She stared at the door as if it were a nightmare painting from Hieronymus Bosch's personal, tortured hell. Then ~ Robert Crais

It's easy to sound good. All you do is leave in the parts where you act tough and forget the parts where you get shoved around. ~ Robert Crais

I think every writer of detective fiction writing today has been influenced by Mr. Parker. I'm of a generation that followed Robert Parker, and it was impossible to read the genre and not be influenced by him. ~ Robert Crais

I don't think it's safe. What if they're waiting for me?" "Elvis would wave us away." "How does he know?" Pike didn't bother answering. He was already missing the silence. ~ Robert Crais

People want you to be ordinary. ~ Robert Crais

Detective Sergeant Lincoln Gibbs was a tall, thin African-American with mocha-colored skin, a profoundly receding hairline, and tortoiseshell spectacles. He looked like a college professor, which was a look he cultivated. He had twenty-eight years on the job, less than Tomsic, but more time in grade as a detective sergeant, so Linc Gibbs would be in charge. He arrived with Detective-three Pete Bishop, a twenty-two-year veteran with an M.A. in psychology and five divorces. Bishop rarely spoke, but was known to make copious notes, which he referred to often. He had a measured IQ of 178 and a drinking problem. He was currently in twelve-step. ~ Robert Crais

I really strive to bring something new to each book. I don't want to write the same book over and over again. ~ Robert Crais

L.A.'s magic has let me see every level of the dream. ~ Robert Crais

Jon Stone spoke thirteen languages and was fluent in six, French being one. He spoke it so well the girls thought he was a native Parisian pretending to be an American. This ability to blend with the natives was a valuable tool when Jon plied his trade. Jon eased from the bed. Floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors lined the back of his house, ten-foot-tall, custom-designed monsters so Jon could Zen on the view. Golden lights glittered to the horizon, ruby flashes marked ghetto-bird prowlers, jets descending toward LAX were strung like pearls across a tuxedo black sky. The doors were heavy as trucks, but silent as silk when they slid open. Jon stepped out and went to the pool. Pike was a silhouette cutout, backlit by the city as Jon swaggered close. "What ~ Robert Crais

Lucy said, The law is an adversarial contest that defines justice as staying within the rules and seeing the game to its conclusion. Justice is reaching a conclusion. It has very little to do with right and wrong. The law gives us order. Only men and women can give us what you want to call justice. ~ Robert Crais

Los Angeles is the evolutionary edge. ~ Robert Crais

My fiction is almost always inspired by a character's need or desire to rise above him- or herself. No one is perfect and some of us have much adversity in our lives; it is those people who struggle to rise above their nature or background that I find the most interesting and heroic. ~ Robert Crais

No other animal bonds to a human being the way a dog does. And I suspect there is no other animal to which human beings can bond the way we can bond to a dog. ~ Robert Crais

Nothing smelled worse than the death of another human being. Not horses or cattle or rotten whales washed onto a beach. Human death was the smell of what hid in the future, waiting for you. ~ Robert Crais

The best dog training was based on the reward system. You did not punish a dog for doing wrong, you rewarded the dog for doing right. The dog did something you wanted, you reinforced the behavior with a reward - pet'm, tell'm they're a good dog, let'm play with a toy. The standard reward for a K-9 working dog was a hard plastic ball with a hole drilled through it where Leland liked to smear a little peanut butter. ~ Robert Crais

As a man gets older, his regrets changes. Especially when he's gotten into the Scotch. ~ Robert Crais

Giving them room is often the better part of valor, especially when you're trying not to make things worse. ~ Robert Crais

Hey, we've got this guy, Dan! He's ours!" Dan Tomsic stared at her with the disdain he reserved for shitbirds, defense attorneys, and card-carrying members of the ACLU. He said, "It's easier to cut off your own goddamned leg than convict a rich man in this state, detective. Haven't you been around long enough to know that? ~ Robert Crais

A man with friends is the wealthiest man in the world. ~ Robert Crais

Truly said, We've talked to people, Mr. Cole. You've an outstanding reputation for diligence, and your integrity is above reproach. ~ Robert Crais

Jonathan Green had a firm handshake, clear eyes, and a jawline not dissimilar to Dudley Do-Right's. He was in his early sixties, with graying hair, a beach-club tan, and a voice that was rich and comforting. A minister's voice. He wasn't a handsome man, but there was a sincerity in his eyes that put you at ease. Jonathan Green was reputed to be one of the top five criminal defense attorneys in America, with a success rate in high-profile criminal defense cases of one hundred percent. Like Elliot Truly, Jonathan Green was wearing an impeccably tailored blue Armani suit. So were the lesser attorneys. Maybe they got a bulk discount. I was wearing impeccably tailored black Gap jeans, a linen aloha shirt, and white Reebok sneakers. Green said, Did Elliot explain why we wanted to see you? ~ Robert Crais

A dog could see your heart in your eyes, Budress told him, and dogs were drawn to our hearts. ~ Robert Crais

It was a lovely morning, hinting at a brutally hot day. Cole squinted into the milky haze that filled his canyon, enjoyed the coffee, and noticed a red-tailed hawk circling overhead, searching for field mice and snakes. Cole said, "What do you think? Is today his day or not?" A black cat sat nearby on the deck, staring down through the rail into the canyon. The cat didn't answer, which is what you get when you talk to cats. Cole said, "You're just jealous you can't fly. ~ Robert Crais

I love, love writing about Los Angeles. I love exploring every part of it. And I find, rather than a burden, it's actually one of the most enjoyable parts of the writing process for me. I love everything about L.A. Okay, not the traffic. But I love the way it looks. I love the geography. I love the diversity. ~ Robert Crais

The Los Angeles River is small, but mean. People who don't know the truth of it make fun of our river; all they see is a tortured trickle that snakes along a concrete gutter like some junkie's vein. They don't know that we put the river in concrete to save ourselves; they don't know that the river is small because it's sleeping, and that every year and sometimes more it wakes. Before we put the river in that silly trough centered on a concrete plain at the bottom of those concrete walls, it flashed to life with the rain to wash away trees and houses and bridges, and cut its banks to breed new channels almost as if it was looking for people to kill. It found what it looked for too many times. Now, when it wakes, the river climbs those concrete walls so high that wet claws rake the freeways and bridges as it tries to pull down a passing car or someone caught out in the storm. Chain-link fences and barbed wire spine along the top of the walls to keep out people, but the walls keep in the river. The concrete is a prison. The prison works, most of the time. ~ Robert Crais

I'll bet you $10 right now that there are an awful lot of literary writers who started a long time ago and now they find themselves in this place where secretly they feel trapped. And you know what they really read for fun? They read crime fiction. ~ Robert Crais

People want you to be ordinary. They don't like it when people are different. They don't like it when a man soars over their heads while they stand in the dirt. People hate you when you're special; it reminds them of everything that they aren't ~ Robert Crais

Cole stared at the Pinocchio clock, then a small ceramic figurine of Jiminy Cricket a client had given him. Let your conscience be your guide. Everyone needed a Jiminy. ~ Robert Crais

The beer came and I said, "Joe, I'm thinking that there is something larger here than an attorney's zealous defense of his client." The master of understatement. ~ Robert Crais

He went out the front door. The sun was blinding after being in the dim house. He walked back to Perry's car, feeling like a boat without a rudder, trapped in a current. He had no place to go and no idea what to do. ~ Robert Crais

Pike said, "What were they saying?" "Couldn't hear, but it's an easy guess. The nephew here just lost two hundred thousand and a boatload of workers. They probably weren't talking about a promotion." Their next stop was a large two-level strip mall on Vermont. The strip mall was in the final stages of being remodeled, with a club and a restaurant taking up most of the upper level and what looked like another bar and a karaoke lounge on the lower level. A large sign in Korean script and English hung across the front of the karaoke lounge: OPENING SOON. Stone ~ Robert Crais

If my vision was good enough, I'd be an astronaut. ~ Robert Crais

Muthuhfuckin' muthuhfucker! I oughta come over there kick your ass myself, worryin'me like this? I got your back homes! I got your back! ~ Robert Crais

She fingered the card and looked at the younger man. "James Edward, did you offer the man a cool drink?" James Edward said, "You want a Scrapple? ~ Robert Crais

Stalking the Angel
[Joe]"I could off anybody in this place five times over."
[Elvis]"Could you off someone and get away with you here?"
[Joe]Head shake. "I'm too good even for me. ~ Robert Crais

Solitude was a spell that freed her. ~ Robert Crais

Maggie reached the door well before Scott, and saw another door ahead. The intruder and another man were waiting beyond it. Ten thousand generations filled her with a guardian's rage. Scott was hers to care for, and hers to keep. She ~ Robert Crais

This man took my last son. No one could claim my hurt, or my anger. No one could have a greater claim on this one's life." Her voice was tight and fierce. She patted Ray's arm. "There's been enough killing down here. We have to find a way to live without the killing. ~ Robert Crais

At Lackland Air Force Base, they make an effort to retrain military dogs that suffer from PTSD. It's a lengthy, long process. The treatment is much the same as it would be for people, but it's a difficult road back. ~ Robert Crais

That's right. He was tied in with a boy down there about the time of the murders. Wasn't enough money up here for him in hijacking; he wanted to bring in drugs, so he worked out something with a - lemme think a minute - a boy named Gonzalo Lehder. Made a few trips down there working out the deal, and I guess they hit it off. When we put the indictments on him, that's where he went. Cole wrote down the name. Lehder. ~ Robert Crais

Daniel loved these damned hurricanes. He folded back the shutters, then opened the window. Rain hit him good. It tasted of salt and smelled of dead fish and weeds. The cat-five wind clawed through New Orleans at better than a hundred miles an hour, but back here in the alley - in a cheap one-room apartment over a po'boy shop - the wind was no stronger than an arrogant breeze. The ~ Robert Crais

Pike glanced at Cole and Cole shrugged. "I have everything I need from here to go forward. I can take her back." Larkin squinted at Cole, still tense with irritation. "Was there something here I missed?" Pike said, "He's taking you back to the house. He'll stay with you until I get back." Pike started back to the Lexus, but the girl followed him. ~ Robert Crais

Pike got into the Lexus, but Larkin stepped inside the door so he couldn't close it. Her face seemed as brittle as a ceramic mask, and Pike suddenly remembered how she had looked up in the desert when she was unloading on her father. Only now she didn't seem so much angry as betrayed. Pike gentled his voice. I'm sorry if I should have discussed it with you. I didn't think it would be an issue. ~ Robert Crais

The sense of smell in all dogs is their primary doorway to the world around them. ~ Robert Crais

There isn't so much love in the world that you can turn it away when it's offered. ~ Robert Crais

Because of the wind, the crows were pointing in one direction but traveling in another. I wondered if they knew it, and, knowing it, understood it, or if they were simply oblivious, carried along by a force that was felt but not seen. The same thing happens to people, but most of the time they don't know it, or when they know it, they think it an action of their own devising. They are usually wrong. ~ Robert Crais

First and foremost I am a commercial writer, and I hope to entertain people. But having said that, I'm in love with the relationship between humans and dogs, and the more I learned about what our military working dogs are doing, I wanted to at least share with people what an important role these animals have in all our lives. ~ Robert Crais

People come to L.A. because they're chasing that dream of a better life. That's why I came here, because I thought it would be a place where I would find other people like me; people who wanted to write, people who had a dream of being something else. And that proved to be true. ~ Robert Crais

He made a sympathetic shrug, then spread his hands. Flexibility, my friend. Flexibility is the key to all happiness. Remember that. ~ Robert Crais

Martin nodded, his head snapping up and down. He was wearing baggy gray sweatpants and no shirt. His torso was soft and undeveloped and covered with a thick growth of fine hair. He squinted against the bright morning sun. Yeah, sure. What do you want? ~ Robert Crais

Pike put down the cat. He slid from Pike's arms like molasses and puddled at his feet. ~ Robert Crais

Everything we are is anchored in our childhoods. The drama comes in how we deal with it. Are we slaves to our past, or can we rise above it? This is the stuff of great stories. ~ Robert Crais

Is it his job to lie?" "No, but you're assuming it's a lie. Reasonable people can disagree and have opposing interpretations of the facts. It's Jonathan's job to present an interpretation that's favorable to his client. It would be malpractice for him to do otherwise." When she said it she was stiff and testy, and it felt like we were having a confrontation. ~ Robert Crais

I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes. ~ Robert Crais

There is a machine-like quality to Joe, as if he had tuned his body the way he might tune his Jeep, and, as the Jeep was perfectly tuned, so was his body. It was easy to imagine him doing a thousand pushups or running a hundred miles, as if his body were an instrument of his mind, as if his mind were a well of limitless resource and unimaginable strength. If the mind said start, the body would start. When the mind said stop, the body would stop, and whatever it would do, it would do with precision and exactness. Dees ~ Robert Crais

My first job was cleaning dog kennels. It was especially, ah, aromatic during those hot, humid Louisiana summers, but it prepared me for Hollywood. ~ Robert Crais

I put my Corvette in the carport, and met him at the kitchen door. Pike said, "Nice eye." No hello, no hey, are you all right? "Clark do that?" You can always count on your friends for humor. ~ Robert Crais

So when it comes to Elvis and Joe, I have to trust my instincts, because they've gotten me here. And I have to write what I believe in, what I find moving. ~ Robert Crais

I glanced at Pike, but Pike was staring out the front door. Intimidating the neighborhood. I said, Maybe he mentioned a buddy who worked at a Shell Station or an ex-con he would have drinks with. ~ Robert Crais

People worked us across the plaza and down to the parking structure. I moved with the crush of bodies the way a leaf is carried by the wind, a part of an unseen world, yet not. ~ Robert Crais

Being a friend is hard." "If it was easy, anyone could do it." "I love smart women." "Smart women love you." "I'd better go." "Call me later. ~ Robert Crais

I said, "Was it Amy?" "If it was, she was too smart for them, which is what drew their attention." Pike said, "They couldn't ID the source." "Meaning what?" Jon smirked. "Meaning the crap on these boards is usually posted by a crank in a garage, or a thirteen-year-old idiot, toked up on the big sister's weed. Thirteen-year-old idiots are easy to find. This computer was hidden behind anonymous proxies, virtual networks, and spoofed identity numbers. One post looked like it came from Paris, the next from Birmingham, another from Baton Rouge. Each post appeared to be written on a different computer, only none of the computers actually existed." I ~ Robert Crais

Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap-tap-tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing that forever kept them from the light. People don't have a dawn. We just keep slamming away until it kills us. ~ Robert Crais

Did bin Laden act alone, through his own al-Qaida network, in launching the attacks? About that I'm far more certain and emphatic: no. ~ Robert Baer

Civilization was a relentless war that man was doomed to lose eventually. - Pg. 195 ~ Robert Harris

Sometimes images may emerge from some chord in my subconscious, the way a dream might. Even in those paintings where an image unconsciously develops, a certain kind of experience is usually necessary in order to perceive it. ~ Robert Motherwell

If you've climbed the first 140 meters it doesn't mean that you've succeeded; you are going to succeed by climbing the last 10 meters. ~ Alain Robert

Not in innocence, and not in Asia, was mankind born. The home of our fathers was that African highland reaching north from the Cape to the Lakes of the Nile. Here we came about-slowly, ever so slowly-on a sky-swept savannah glowing with menace. ~ Robert Ardrey

Anyone will be glad to admit that he knows nothing about beagling, or the Chinese stock market, or ballistics, but there is not a man or woman alive who does not claim to know how to cure hiccoughs. ~ Robert Benchley

Nothing in the world can make you happy; everything in the world can encourage you to be happy ~ Robert Holden

A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that "individuality" is the key to success. ~ Robert Orben

Wisdom and love have nothing to do with each other. Wisdom is staying alive, survival. You're wise if you don't stick your finger in the light plug. Love - you'll stick your finger in anything. ~ Robert Altman

The killer," the old man said. "He's still there. He doesn't want them in the house. ~ Robert Liparulo

I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world. ~ Robert Kennedy

Keep expenses low, reduce liabilities, and diligently build a base of solid assets. ~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

We find things where we look for them. ~ Robert Breault

I remember when humor was gentle pokes. I used to call it 'arm around the shoulder' humor. Now they go for the jugular and they take no prisoners. It's mean, mean stuff. ~ Robert Orben

Argument cannot be answered with insults. Kindness is strength; anger blows out the lamp of the mind. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Space in typography is like time in music. It is infinitely divisible, but a few proportional intervals can be much more useful than a limitless choice of arbitrary quantities. ~ Robert Bringhurst

So when you're in doubt and feeling a little afraid, just do what Colonel Sanders did to his little chicken. He fried it. ~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

Sometimes love needs a rest from caring, and so bears for an intolerable few hours the guilt of not caring. ~ Robert Breault

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson