Lee Child Quotes

I suppose that's why we watch dramas: to see the stuff that in real life you'd end up in prison for.

The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love - almost as violent and much more mischievous.

We're a miserably violent species. But there's a complication, which is we don't hate violence, we hate the wrong kind. And when it's the right kind, we cheer it on, we hand out medals, we vote for, we mate with our champions of it. When it's the right kind of violence, we love it.

Murder and hate are as deeply buried in the human heart as love, perhaps more so, and in truth they're rather entwined, and if you tried to separate them, you'd be missing something important and human.

We do want to drive out the beast in man, but we do not want on that account to emasculate him.

You can't punch people in the face, punch people in the face, punch people in the face, and ask them to have tea and crumpets with you and think it's all good. Life doesn't work that way.

Some might argue humans are hard-wired to fight. I don't agree: we are conscious beings who have the capacity to make decisions.

These pigeons have been living with each other for 10 or 15 years, but when I throw feed down, they kill each other to get it, and it's the same with the fighters. We love and respect each other...but we need that money.

This is the strange way of the world, that people who simply want to love are instead forced to become warriors.

I don't want him hurt because he got out of hand with me." "Yet you would have shot him." I shrugged. "I never said I was consistent, just serious.

I think that man is conditioned to violence.

There is a comfort in conformity, a security in control, that is appealing. There is a thrill in domination, and we are all secretly attracted to violence.

Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than of war.

A great deal has been written about the forthrightness of the moderns shocking the Victorians, but there is no shock like the one which the forthrightness of the Victorians can give a modern.

Between shame and shamelessness lies the axis upon which we turn; meteorological conditions at both these poles are of the most extreme, ferocious type. Shamelessness, shame: the roots of violence.

Are we savages or what?

Still, it doesn't do to murder people, no matter how offensive they may be.

I've never killed anybody... but I've definitely thought about it. But that's how we are. That's what happens when you put people together and put them into societies and cultures and have laws and the idea of justice.

If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.

I'm not a bad guy... I'm just good guy that runs over women with his car.

All the world does as it is supposed to, except for humans. Maybe that's why you so often want to kill each other.

Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.

In revenge and in love, woman is more barbarous than man.

I've never killed anybody... but I've definitely thought about it.