Top 96 Nelson Demille Quotes
#1. The window on the right featured contemporary bestselling authors like Brad Meltzer, James Patterson, David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille, and others who make more money writing about what I do than I make doing what I do.
Nelson DeMille
#2. Pulp paperbacks have always provided a training ground for men, Some of them went on to become respected authors - Dean Koontz, Nelson DeMille and Martin Cruz Smith, for example. Why couldn't a woman?
Gayle Lynds
#3. I want to be back to work next week.
'Let's get you home first. I need to evaluate the extent of your mental impairment.' She tried to flash me the peace sign, but in her weakend condition, she only managed to raise her middle finger.
Nelson DeMille
#5. Kate had never been married, so she had no way of knowing if I was a normal husband. This has been good for our marriage.
Nelson DeMille
#6. But that's all hindsight. That evening, my mind was cloudy, and my good judgment was influenced by my need to prove something. It goes to show you, you shouldn't stay out too late during the week.
Nelson DeMille
#7. Mr. Stanley if you had stayed for your entire time in Hue at the mini-motel where they do not ask for passports or visas." "Right. We should have done that. Anything else?" "Yes. How does your lady friend,
Nelson DeMille
#8. Concurring.' But now we know what I suspected. Two people on the board voted for acquittal, which means there are
Nelson DeMille
#9. ... made me promise to cut down on the drinking and swearing, which I have. Unfortunately, this has left me dim-witted and nearly speechless.
Nelson DeMille
#10. We're all pilgrims on the same journey - but some pilgrims have better road maps.
Nelson DeMille
#11. Confrontational is when I pull my gun. Argumentative is when I pull the trigger.
Nelson DeMille
#12. Indeed we all try to raise our children as if our past experiences are important for their future, but they rarely are.
Nelson DeMille
#13. I try to end every chapter with an air of suspense. I try to leave the reader wanting to turn the page.
Nelson DeMille
#14. Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.
Nelson DeMille
#15. There's hell, there's darkness, there is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench, consumption!
Nelson DeMille
#16. In America if you're poor, you're worse than a criminal. You're nobody.
Nelson DeMille
#17. And there was that pregnant silence in the air, the silence between a husband and wife who have just had words, and it is unlike any other silence except perhaps the awful stillness you hear between the flash of an atomic bomb and the blast. Five, four, three, two, one.
Nelson DeMille
#18. There are Mafia families that have bought magnificent houses on the North Shore, although not yet the great estates because they don't want that kind of high profile.
Nelson DeMille
#20. You have to go out of your way as a suspense novelist to find situations where the protagonists are somewhat helpless and in real danger.
Nelson DeMille
#21. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. And if your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough.
Nelson DeMille
#22. The problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you're finished.
Nelson DeMille
#23. I honestly don't know how anyone functions in this society without a law degree.
Nelson DeMille
#24. I had a very strong desire to be successful at something.
Nelson DeMille
#25. Most of my books are about contemporary subjects, and the world changes so fast that I'm lucky when events haven't overtaken the book I'm writing at the moment.
Nelson DeMille
#26. Totally incompetent blowhard, an idiot and a fool.
Nelson DeMille
#27. Use a gun that works every time. As George Washington said, 'All skill is in vain when an angel pisses in the flintlock of your musket.
Nelson DeMille
#28. But if I could choose how and when I wanted to die, I would want to be an eighty-year-old man shot by a jealous young husband who had caught me in bed with his teenage wife.
Nelson DeMille
#29. Credo quia impossibile.' I believe it because it is impossible.
Nelson DeMille
#30. Job happiness is directly proportional to the distance you are from the home office.
Nelson DeMille
#32. From the unknown, through the unknown, to the unknown. Put your hand into the hand of God. It will be all right.
Nelson DeMille
#33. Never have sex with a woman who has more problems than you do.
Nelson DeMille
#34. The journey home is never a direct route; it is, in fact, always circuitous, and somewhere along the way, we discover that the journey is more significant than the destination and that the people we meet along the way will be the traveling companions of our memories forever.
Nelson DeMille
#35. A lot of our perception of history is influenced by inaccurate movies.
Nelson DeMille
#36. Panic
a deep abiding, free-floating anxiety, often without any reason or logical basis.
Nelson DeMille
#37. I was trained in Army Intelligence, but spent most of my army career in the infantry. But like many people of my generation, I was very much caught up in the Cold War, and books and movies about espionage.
Nelson DeMille
#38. I tried to picture a bunch of guys in blue suits running around a beachside neighborhood, knocking on doors and flashing Fed creds. That should cause a stampede of illegal aliens heading south.
Nelson DeMille
#39. I have no plans to use the Internet as the main subject of a novel.
Nelson DeMille
#40. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Nelson DeMille
#41. How you doing at 26 Fed?"
"I'm growing and learning, meeting new challenges with confidence and enthusiasm while developing good work ethics and people skills."
"I'm surprised they haven't fired your ass."
"Me too.
Nelson DeMille
#42. The air was so thick with testosterone that the wallpaper was getting soggy.
Nelson DeMille
#43. Women need a reason to have sex; men need only a place.
Nelson DeMille
#44. Everyone looked pensive, which is good cover-up for clueless.
Nelson DeMille
#45. I continued, "The painting shows this fish with a big eye and a halo, floating in air, and underneath the fish are all these Native Americans having sex." "What? What does that have to do with Custer's Last Stand?" "Well, the painting is titled, Holy Mackerel, Look at All Those Fucking Indians.
Nelson DeMille
#46. The most common cause of death among alpha males was ego.
Nelson DeMille
#47. Nostalgia is basically the ability to forget the things that sucked.
Nelson DeMille
#48. The meaning of life has not much to do with good and evil, right and wrong, duty, honor, country, or any of that.
It has to do with cutting the right deal.
Nelson DeMille
#49. I turned to the Times crossword puzzle and asked Kate, "What's the definition of a moderate Arab?" "I don't know." "A guy who ran out of ammunition.
Nelson DeMille
#51. The world has gotten smaller and more accessible since I first started writing in the 70's.
Nelson DeMille
#52. An Englishman once said that he found it easier to be a member of a club than of the human race because the bylaws were shorter, and he knew all the members personally. That sounds about right.
Nelson DeMille
#53. Most accidents, I'm convinced, are God's way of getting rid of stupid people. Or if you believe in Darwinism, you wonder why there are any stupid people left in the world. Well, I guess they can reproduce before they remove themselves from the gene pool.
Nelson DeMille
#54. Lawrence Kelter is an exciting new novelist, who reminds me of an early Robert Ludlum.
Nelson DeMille
#55. I try to use short sentences, short paragraphs and short chapters to keep the reader's interest.
Nelson DeMille
#56. You're smarter than you look. Did you ever have anti-terrorist training?" "Sort of. I was married.
Nelson DeMille
#57. But, you know, shit happens even when you have a shit shield with you.
Nelson DeMille
#58. It's much different today than it was during the Cold War. The CIA is not the subject of many books anymore. But that might change, because of international terrorism and Red China.
Nelson DeMille
#59. There is no harder worker than a former government employee who has discovered the word incentive.
Nelson DeMille
#60. There are a lot of books about the passing of the English aristocracy, but the vast majority of Long Islanders don't understand their own backyard. It's a private preserve.
Nelson DeMille
#61. She asked me, "Was your divorce nasty?" "Not at all. The marriage was nasty.
Nelson DeMille
#62. I used the pen name because I knew I wanted to write better novels under my own name someday.
Nelson DeMille
#63. I do write my manuscripts by hand, in pencil on legal pads. Then they are typed on a word processor by my typist.
Nelson DeMille
#64. I generally unwind by having dinner with close friends.
Nelson DeMille
#65. Well, no one ever said the truth would make you happy - only free.
Nelson DeMille
#66. Ernest Hemingway was the author I drew inspiration from.
Nelson DeMille
#67. We're all
criminally insane, but most of us have good control mechanisms,
internal and external. Remove the controls and you have a killer.
Nelson DeMille
#69. A big Russian lady, who seemed to be the household cook, supervised the making of zakuski
Russian hors d'oeuvres, which unfortunately didn't include pigs-in-a-blanket. What kind of party is this?
Nelson DeMille
#70. I don't like mysteries, which is why I want to solve them. It bothers me that there are things I don't know.
Nelson DeMille
#71. Sometimes shit happens even if you have a shit shield
Nelson DeMille
#72. Absolutely breathtaking, nail-biting, and edge-of-your-seat. Michael Koryta is a master at maintaining suspense and a hell of a good writer. THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD is one of the best chase-and-escape novels you'll read this year-or any other year. The pace never lets up.
Nelson DeMille
#73. Psychology is a soft weapon but you can take out
more enemy battalions with leaflets and radio broadcasts than with high explosives.
Nelson DeMille
#74. How you handle life depends a lot on how you handle plan B, or if you have a plan B.
Nelson DeMille
#75. Chemical and biological attacks are scary and will kill a lot of people but don't rise to the level of nuclear.
Nelson DeMille
#76. If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we would be taking the first step towards a real humanity.
Nelson DeMille
#77. There were two display windows, one on each side of the door, and in the windows were ... well, books. What this street really needed was a bar.
Nelson DeMille
#78. I sometimes use some personality traits to fashion part of a character. Most of my characters are composites of either people I know or people in the public eye.
Nelson DeMille
#79. He understood, too, that they had not necessarily been chosen to succeed, or even to live. But they'd been chosen to find the Holy Grail that was within themselves. And that's what this was always about; the Grail was a phantom and the journey was inward, into their hearts and souls.
Nelson DeMille
#80. You get a promotion?"
"I got a polite, but firm suggestion to be a team player. [ ... ]"
"You got off easy. One of my commanding officers once threw a paperweight at me."
"We're a bit more subtle.
Nelson DeMille
#81. Somehow, amid all the sophistication and diversions of this world, we forgot the basics: take care of business at home first, and never betray your blood.
Nelson DeMille
#82. It's really scary when you have a moment of temporary sanity.
Nelson DeMille
#83. Stephen King once told me he liked my writing. And that was great.
Nelson DeMille
#84. Writing doesn't leave much time for hobbies, unless you consider that I began writing as a hobby and have made the hobby into a profession.
Nelson DeMille
#85. The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you are finished.
Nelson DeMille
#86. I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it's done in handwriting.
Nelson DeMille
#87. Mrs. Corey still uses her maiden name for business, or when she wants to pretend she doesn't know me.
Nelson DeMille
#88. Basically, all women are nurturers and healers, and all men are mental patients to varying degrees.
Nelson DeMille
#89. It's good to stay as close to real life as you can, and then kind of dress it up.
Nelson DeMille
#91. Even the most radical Islamic terrorist would not want to see the revered holy city of Medina go up. It would be like losing the Vatican in Rome.
Nelson DeMille
#92. As with real estate, what matters with bullet holes is location, location, location.
Nelson DeMille
#93. I've always been fascinated by the Gold Coast. The homes themselves are spectacular, unlike anything you'll see other than in Newport, Bar Harbor or Palm Beach. It's a very special area that, because of local demographics, is not going to survive much longer.
Nelson DeMille
#94. I thought to myself, what is everyone's worst fear? Nuclear terrorism in America.
Nelson DeMille
#95. A boat is sort of a litmus test for relationships, the close quarters and solitude compelling people into either a warm bond or into mutiny and murder. As
Nelson DeMille
#96. I think it's more difficult now to write a spy thriller with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many authors have tried, but few have succeeded in capturing the interest of readers.
Nelson DeMille
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