Top 100 Sandford Quotes
#1. Jim Harrison's novels, John McPhee's nonfiction, Flannery O'Connor's short stories, and the crime novels of John Sandford, Ken Bruen, and T. Jefferson Parker. His books
C.J. Box
#2. This idea [standardized time zones] was first advanced and fought for by Sandford Fleming of Canada and Charles F. Dowd of the United States. I mention them chiefly because like so many benefactors of mankind they have been rewarded by total obscurity.
Isaac Asimov
#3. Hey, fuck you," Lucas said. "What!" Pole started to move at Lucas, but saw something in Lucas's eyes that made him take a step back. Bell Wood got between them and Lucas growled, "Stay away from me, asshole.
John Sandford
#4. You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life.
John Sandford
#5. We ain't in California no more," Pilate said. "Every fuckin' body up here's got a gun. Even that old lady in the hamburger shop, shot Michelle.
John Sandford
#6. When something comes from so deep inside you that it is beyond your understanding, then you must judge everything by that standard.
Rick Sandford
#7. He went on like that for a while, and before he was done, Lucas had dismissed him as being ineffectually goofy, although his ideas about the killing were roughly the same as Lucas's own. Holly said he had no idea who on the staff might have been involved with Tubbs, or might be working as a spy.
John Sandford
#8. Dannon brought the .22 up and shot him in the temple. Carver's head bounced off the side window and Dannon shot him again, the .22 shots deafening inside the truck, but hardly audible outside. Carver slumped, his face not even looking surprised.
John Sandford
#10. I'll bring pajamas " she said.
"Yeah? You have any idea how old I am?"
"Not nearly as old as you're gonna be by midnight.
John Sandford
#11. Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you'll find it is a very nice piece of writing.
John Sandford
#12. A diplomatic passport for a Tal Zahavi, with a current photo of Yael-1. The same birth date as in the other passport. The interior must have had fifty entry stamps for European and South American countries, plus the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. The woman traveled a lot.
John Sandford
#14. Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.
Edward Sandford Martin
#15. I'm talking to a guy who says he was taken up in a flying saucer and had sexual experiments done on him - which, I got to say, is probably the only sexual experiments he's ever had done on him, that didn't involve a heifer.
John Sandford
#16. Lucas's position was supine: that is, whenever he heard people arguing about it, he wanted to lie down and take a nap.
John Sandford
#17. Time passes, but sometimes it beats the shit out of you as it goes.
John Sandford
#18. When any worthwhile thing is done in the world, it's usually done by somebody weird.
John Sandford
#19. Defries was forced to cancel dates in Dallas and Houston because of weak advance sales.
Christopher Sandford
#20. Okra is essentially a squid that grows in the ground instead of swimming in the ocean.
John Sandford
#21. Cops and schoolteachers," Sloan said with satisfaction. "A cop and schoolteacher bar. The teachers drink like fish. The cops hit on the schoolteachers. One big happy family.
John Sandford
#22. I've always been sort of interested in the rural countryside. Things happen out there that are very strange to city dwellers.
John Sandford
#23. LEONARD WAS A THICK, dark-haired man, Lucas's height but heavier, both in the arms and the gut. He was wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and yellow work boots. The scars around his pale, suspicious eyes and a withered nose made him into a brawler.
John Sandford
#24. LOUISE WAS SORTING nuts and bolts into metal bins at the back of the somnambulant hardware store.
John Sandford
#25. When I think about it, the happiest, most successful, most fulfilled people I know are the ones who, over time, gave themselves the most permissions - in all areas of their lives. Guided
Sandford Lyne
#26. He was conservative, especially on the abortion issue, and he was death on taxes; on the other hand, he had a Clintonesque attitude about women, and even a sense of humor about his own peccadilloes.
John Sandford
#27. The advanced interstellar culture operates on a barter system. Never saw that one coming.
John Sandford
#28. I am not so afraid that I cannot see the truth.
John Sandford
#29. Carver was truculent: "What's a good part of it?
John Sandford
#30. JENKINS AND VIRGIL walked back up the valley to the Ruff house, and found Muddy inside, tootling on a black electric guitar, a complex
John Sandford
#31. With most of my books, I'll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the scene pop.
John Sandford
#32. Schiffer recoiled: "Oh, Jesus Christ, Taryn, don't give me a heart attack," she said, clutching at her chest. "Remember: no sense of humor. How many times do I have to tell you that: No sense of humor. Humor can get you in all kinds of shit and we've got this won, if we don't get funny.
John Sandford
#33. Lucas's Colt .45 Gold Cup and Beretta 92F, and drove up
John Sandford
#34. was crooked as a sidewinder rattlesnake. "So what
John Sandford
#35. bit: that there was a possibility of a conspiracy aimed at Michaela Bowden.
John Sandford
#36. Catholics don't scream about Jesus, they scream about the bishop.
John Sandford
#37. When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?'
John Sandford
#38. The press conference was held in a courtroom at the new county courthouse, a space that did its best to translate justice into laminated wood.
John Sandford
#39. Everything we're doing is freakin' iffy. That's what makes it so much fun.
John Sandford
#40. Like the NRA says, it's better to have a machine gun and not need it than to need a machine gun and not have it.
John Sandford
#41. Felt the dark finger of hypocrisy stroking his soul.
John Sandford
#42. The woman had thick plastic glasses and looked up at them, eyes large as eggs behind the lenses, and asked, "Jeez, who got murdered?
John Sandford
#43. Just about killed ourselves out there in the dark," Carver said. "He's gone. Put a few concrete blocks on top of him, just in case." "In case of what?" Taryn asked, fascinated in spite of herself. "Well . . . body gases," Carver said. "The ground was a little wet, you wouldn't want him popping up.
John Sandford
#44. Quintana had known Tubbs since high school; Tubbs had been one of the slightly nerdy intellectuals on the edge of the popular clique, while Quintana had been metal shop and a football lineman.
John Sandford
#45. These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt.
John Sandford
#47. On the way out to Lawrence's, he thought about Palmer's wild reaction. Was there a little fear there? Hard to tell, with all the other possibilities - anger, bigotry, psychosis.
John Sandford
#48. Good," Lucas said. "And hey - relax. Gonna be all right." "No, it won't," she said. "I can almost guarantee that whatever it is, it won't be all right.
John Sandford
#49. THE DAY WAS PERFECT: low eighties, bluebird sky, the slightest touch of a breeze. If the Minnesota August lasted all year, nobody would live anywhere else.
John Sandford
#50. the truck. Yael was waiting at the front bumper, and as he came up to her, a sheriff's patrol car turned off the road and onto the track and accelerated toward them. Virgil said to Yael, "He's been shot, but he'll live. For the time being, anyway. He says he doesn't know anything
John Sandford
#51. said "let's send that fuckin' Flowers up there. He hasn't done anything for us lately."
"He's off today," somebody said.
Davenport said, "So what?
John Sandford
#52. First she got Jesus, probably fifteen years ago, and that didn't work out, so she tried Scientology, and that didn't help, but it cost a lot of money, so she tried Buddhism and yoga, and those didn't work, so she started drinking. I think that helped, because she's still drinking.
John Sandford
#56. The thing about Botox is that when you've had too much, you then have to fake reactions just to look human--and it's impossible to distinguish real fake reactions from fake fake reactions.
John Sandford
#57. trust no one, everything breaks, nothing works as advertised, and if anything can go wrong, it will.
John Sandford
#58. Most people like a little sex in their novels.
John Sandford
#59. Oh yeah, I heard you got born again.' she said. 'Which you needed since they fucked up the first time.
John Sandford
#60. LIKE ANY GOOD MINNESOTAN, Lucas rarely missed the TV weather before going to bed.
John Sandford
#61. There's something about marriage that is not as intensely romantic or interesting as a couple's first meeting.
John Sandford
#62. Never been there, the Middle East," Qatar said vaguely.
John Sandford
#63. I could live here," Del said. "No, you couldn't. You'd turn into a coot and hang out at the general store, with your fly down," Lucas said. "You'd be known for goosing middle-aged women. You'd be the town embarrassment.
John Sandford
#64. Give me the goddamn names, Grace," Lucas said. "C'mon. Please. Talk to me. Save yourself." "Fuck you." - FORD CAME BACK, looked at Lucas, asked, "Get a name?" "Not unless it's 'Fuck you,'" Lucas said.
John Sandford
#65. copy of an aerial photo from the engineering department.
John Sandford
#66. Well, I am becoming doddering and old but I have - I'm writing two books a year now. It's like 220,000 words or something like finished, and, honest to God, I can't do that. I really do need the help of, you know, other people working with me.
John Sandford
#67. Flowers said, "I got two bottles of water in the car."
"Get them. And get your gun," Lucas said.
"The gun? You think?"
"No. I just like to see you wearing the fuckin' gun for a change," Lucas said. "C'mon, let's get moving.
John Sandford
#68. You're saying the media is dangerous, immoral, and antidemocratic?" "Well . . . yes," Henderson said. "They don't recognize it in themselves, but they're basically criminals. In the classic sense of that word.
John Sandford
#69. THE BACK DOOR, what was left of it, scraped open again, and they could hear boot steps on the stoop, and Lucas said, "This is it, Grace. Who's going after Bowden? Give me something that'll give you a break." She shook her head. "Fuck you.
John Sandford
#70. THE EXCHANGE KEPT LUCAS warm all the way out to the car. He'd jump off a high building before he betrayed Weather, but a little extracurricular flirtation kept the blood circulating; not that all of it went to the brain.
John Sandford
#71. love of money is the root of all evils.' Timothy, six-ten.
John Sandford
#72. Fresh ideas from this group was virtually an oxymoron, Marlys thought, wriggling her butt against the comfortless chair.
John Sandford
#73. Got here half an hour ago and had a look, eyeballin' it," Sawyer said. "It's murder, all right. Tell you something else - the sun went down, and it's as dark as the inside of a horses's ass out here."
"You're sure?"
"Well, I've never actually been inside a horses's ass.
John Sandford
#74. Are you very tolerant? What things do you find it hard to put up with?
George Sandford
#75. The local farmers, of course, were bitching because the bean and corn harvests were going to be huge and the prices depressed. Of course, if it hadn't rained, they'd be bitching because their crops were small, even if the prices were high. You couldn't win with farmers.
John Sandford
#76. Lucas kicked back in his chair, and thought, Let's go to Sherlock Holmes. When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever was left, however improbable, must be the truth. Or something like that.
John Sandford
#77. If a Martian were watching our television shows, he'd conclude that guns were more common than hammers. They're not evil themselves--they're tools--but everywhere you go, bad people have them. It behooves the righteous to at least know how they work.
John Sandford
#78. Clay pulled Lucas along and as they were approaching the back door, he called, "Madam Secretary . . . I need you to meet this guy." She stopped and turned and looked at Lucas and then Clay, did a quick price check on Lucas's suit, and asked, "How do you do?
John Sandford
#79. They were shot with a shotgun and put in garbage bags and thrown under a bridge," Shrake said. "If it wasn't murder, it was a really weird accident.
John Sandford
#80. Got Hollow Points?" Another said: "Heavily Armed . . . and easily pissed." A third one: "Point and Click . . . means you're out of ammo.
John Sandford
#81. Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations.
John Sandford
#82. If the AG had been a lightbulb instead of a lawyer, he would have been about a twenty-watt.
John Sandford
#83. Her Pan-Cake makeup was cracking like a dried-out Dakota lake bed.
John Sandford
#84. If there were honorary degrees for assholes, he'd be a doctor of everything," Lily said.
John Sandford
#85. Gonna rain like a cow pissin' on a flat rock [drugstore clerk to detective Virgil Flowers] Dark of the Moon, p.7
John Sandford
#86. What!" Schiffer blurted, not a question. Lucas had been watching Carver and Dannon again, and again, their eyes were blank; if they'd been lizards, Lucas thought, a nictitating membrane might have dropped slowly across them.
John Sandford
#87. For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind's delight, for the mystic harmony, linking sense to sound and sight; Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.
Folliott Sandford Pierpoint
#88. If something did happen to Bowden, how would that affect your chances?" Lucas asked. "What a rotten, cynical question to ask. I'm proud of you," Henderson said.
John Sandford
#89. For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild;
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise this our Sacrifice of grateful praise.
Folliott Sandford Pierpoint
#90. They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly.
John Sandford
#91. Marlys was a sturdy woman in her fifties, white curls clinging to her scalp like vanilla frosting. She wore rimless glasses, a homemade red-checked gingham dress, and low-topped Nikes. Short-nosed and pale, she had a small pink mouth that habitually pursed in thought, or disapproval.
John Sandford
#92. ....there are as many nuts on the left as there are on the right, and in the long run, the lefties are probably more dangerous.
John Sandford
#96. Focus on our ignorance." She didn't quite grasp the concept. She'd never been ignorant.
John Sandford
#97. So she made no secret about being gay?"
"Why should she?" the little old lady asked. "Nobody would care but a bunch of stuffy old men.
John Sandford
#98. One of the girls said, "I think you should go now." Virgil stood
John Sandford
#99. It's okay with us," Dannon said, and now there was something in his eye, a little spark of pleasure, a job well done. Lucas thought, This isn't good.
John Sandford
#100. bar. Lucas pointed at a stool and said, "Beer?
John Sandford
