Pendergast Quotes

#1. I like your custom 1911," the man said, glancing at Pendergast's weapon. "Les Baer Thunder Ranch Special? Nice-looking piece.

Douglas Preston

#2. He found Pendergast's cool gaze on him, and he fidgeted. He'd forgotten about those eyes. They made you feel like you had just been stripped of your secrets.

Douglas Preston

#3. On the rare occasions when my family talked about business, the subject was Kansas City's Boss Pendergast and his potential for muscling my dad's small gravel-and-sand operation.

Carol Loomis

#4. Spaces again. I guess one citation wasn't enough." Pendergast pulled out the previous ticket. "You mean this?" "That's right." Pendergast neatly tore it in half and tucked the pieces back into his pocket. The chief frowned.

Douglas Preston

#5. D'Agosta had long ago learned, when working with Pendergast, to never get caught without two things: a gun and a flashlight.

Douglas Preston

#6. Growing up in the Midwest, I was very close to my maternal grandmother, who, as a young widow running a small business in 1920s Kansas City, had known firsthand the old Pendergast regime and its classic combine of politics and organized crime.

Roger Morris

#7. There was a pause while Pendergast considered this. I prefer hypocrisy to poverty.

Douglas Preston

#8. Already up to his waist in the quaking bog, Pendergast stopped struggling and stared up at his assassin. The icy glitter in the pale gray eyes spoke more eloquently of his hatred and despair than any words he might have spoken, and it shook Esterhazy to the core.

Douglas Preston

#9. To one side, a vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, polished to a gem-like brilliance, sat on a flatbed trailer, ready to be taken to its new owner. Constance looked from Pendergast to the Rolls and back again. "I really don't need two, you know," he said.

Douglas Preston

#10. Mrs. Trask turned to him. When Mr. Pendergast asks for something, we do not say no.

Douglas Preston

#11. Hezekiah Pendergast," Constance continued, "was the great-great-grandfather of Aloysius - and a first-rate mountebank. He began his career as a snake-oil salesman for traveling medicine shows and, over time, devised his own 'medicine': Hezekiah's Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative.

Douglas Preston

#12. A Blind Beggar Receives His Sight

Anonymous

#13. The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#14. I can see that an insufficent, or perhaps even defective, socialization process has led you to believe that four-letter words add power to languauge

Douglas Preston

#15. What a rush you're in to show me the last dregs of your vile soul!

Giacomo Puccini

#16. Not only eating Lieutenant, but slobbering over the food as well. Clearly, he, she, or it has no manners.

Douglas Preston

#17. Sleep is an unfortunate biological requirement that both wastes time and leaves one vulnerable.

Douglas Preston

#18. The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.

Andre Gide

#19. There is more in the world than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Doctor - or in the Merck Manual.

Douglas Preston

#20. What else could I do? You couldn't just say no. I had to think about...my...position.

Helen Maryles Shankman

#21. God bless us, everyone," Smithback intoned. Margo punched him playfully.

Douglas Preston

#22. It's a very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.

Douglas Preston

#23. Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it
turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself, so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.

Marcus Aurelius

#24. It's okay. Don't push her, Sharon.

Laura Wiess

#25. Hey, Margo, this looks like a big job. Why don't you send out for pizza? The best place in town is Antonio's. I recommend the green chili and pepperoni. Shall I fax the order now?

Douglas Preston

#26. There is a mountain range behind the town, called the Sierra de Sangre de Cristo. It means the 'Blood of Christ Mountains' in Spanish.

Douglas Preston