Graham Hurley > Quotes

“... It's just so' - she frowned, hunting for the right word - 'relentless. You think you're getting on top of it. You scoop up a few villains, get a result or two, make a night of it in the bar, then next morning you wake up and start all over again. It never bloody stops...
She described the pressures from headquarters, and from her own divisional Superintendent. The never-ending demands to beat performance target after performance target. The blizzards of paperwork. The fact that no one really knew what their political masters were after. They claimed to have priorities, lots of priorities, but in the end you got to realise there were so many that absolutely nothing got to the top of the heap. When it came to working out what politicians wanted, really wanted, she'd finally sussed the truth: that they were all equally clueless.”
― Graham Hurley, The Take

“Everyone who had reason to work with him agreed that he’d changed. A lot of his confidence seemed to have gone. He was less sure of himself, less prepared to take a risk or two, somehow smaller. Maybe it was something that would pass, said some. Maybe not.”
― Graham Hurley, Kyiv

“Life is dangerous, she thought. No one survives it.”
― Graham Hurley, Kyiv

“The man walked from his shoulders, anticipating life's next blow, the way ageing boxers did.”
― Graham Hurley, Raid 42

“Exchanges like these with Cathy always exhausted him, partly because she was so tenacious, but mainly because she was right. It was a fact of life that those with the fattest wallets and the loudest voices always got more than they deserved”
― Graham Hurley, Turnstone

“There are good men everywhere. Here. Odessa. Even Moscow. Do they count? Does anyone ever listen to them? Yes, of course they do. At the beginning, their voices matter. Without them nothing happens. But afterwards it's different. Afterwards, the only thing that matters is power.”
― Graham Hurley, Kyiv

“King Lear.”
― Graham Hurley, No Lovelier Death

“Every physical movement is mannered, thought-out, plotted for maximum screen effect. She takes deep breaths. She seems to sigh a lot. She's the first-class passenger on a ride of her own invention and she loves the fact that she can share it.”
― Graham Hurley, Sight Unseen