106 Quotes by Robert Crais

She was looking at me expectantly, so I nodded. “Sure.” If you can at least look smart, people will assume that you are smart.

My family was all police and hard hats at the refineries; they didn’t know what to think about me. So I became a closet writer.

The Predators The African lion makes a kill only twice out of every ten hunts. Leopards do better, catching their prey twenty-five percent of the time, and cheetahs do best of all the big cats, with a kill ratio of nearly fifty percent. The deadliest four-legged African predator is not a big cat. It cannot be outrun or outdistanced, its pursuit is relentless, and it captures its prey nine out of every ten hunts. The most dangerous predator in Africa is the wild dog.

When long-term convicts were first released they often experienced a form of agoraphobia – a fear of open spaces. The prison counselors had a special name for this type of agoraphobia when they attributed it to convicts – the fear of life. Freedom gave a man choices and choices could be terrifying. Every choice was a potential failure.

I was digging for stuff in a used bookstore, and I came upon ‘Little Sister.’ I fell in love with Chandler that night. I fell right down the rabbit hole of crime fiction.

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.

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.

Adults always wonder what to say and how to say it when they’re talking to a child. You want to be wise, but all you are is a child yourself in a larger body. Nothing is ever what it seems. The things that you think you know are never certain. I know that now. I wish that I didn’t, but I do.

The attendant smiled a goodbye at the door. “You look much better.” “I’ve achieved a measure of peace with my uncertainty.