Brian Garfield > Quotes

“Living is something most of us postpone, isn't it? We sell the present for a chance at a future where we may do our living when we're old and we've lost the talent for it.”
― Brian Garfield, Hopscotch

“I scowled. “Attu has been of utterly no importance to anybody since May 1943. Is this your version of sending me to Siberia? What are my transgressions?”
― Brian Garfield, Checkpoint Charlie: Stories

“periphery”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“despondency;”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“innocuous”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“Then for the first time he smiled. Myerson’s smile would frighten a piranha. It meant only that he hoped I would end up in trouble to my hairline. As I went to the door he said to my back, “You’ve got to go on a diet, Charlie. You hardly fit through doors any more — you haven’t got any sideways.” He was still smiling — a wicked glitter of polished teeth.”
― Brian Garfield, Checkpoint Charlie: Stories

“spurious”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“He’s a very frightened man.’ “‘I had the feeling he was just the opposite. You get the impression he has steel cables for nerves.’ “‘Quite the reverse. He’s terrified. It’s only that his rage is even greater than his fear.’ “‘Do you think his fear is real or imaginary?’ “‘Fear is always real. The question is whether it’s justified by the actual conditions. If it isn’t you have paranoia in some form.”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“A rage to survive was a natural thing, he thought; everybody had it. Everybody had a right to it.”
― Brian Garfield, Hopscotch

“cortege”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“It was a crude destructive attack without any of the clandestine finesse that usually characterized warfare in our field — it was as if someone had decided to conclude a game of chess by blasting all the pieces off the board with a fire hose.”
― Brian Garfield, Checkpoint Charlie: Stories

“Now he was thinking vaguely in terms of Oregon or the British Columbia country. Need to get a long way away from this part of the world after today. And up in western Canada he’d heard around the barracks that they didn’t piss on black skin.”
― Brian Garfield, Tripwire

“Everybody lived like a character in a one-act play that nobody understood; getting by from one moment to the next was like trying to hold on to your hat in a gusty wind.”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“play”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“not only his opposite numbers on the other side”
― Brian Garfield, Line of Succession

“you know what a liberal is? A liberal is a guy who walks out of the room when the fight starts.”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“solipsism”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“The longer he spent in the apartment the more terrifying the outside world became. He”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“callous”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“saccharine”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish

“He knew that in Texas, the Mexicans had allowed Norteamericanos to colonize—and a war had resulted.”
― Brian Garfield, The Vanquished

“You’ve been there before?” “Twenty-odd years ago on the U-2 program.” Ross was intrigued; he’s still a collegiate at heart — young enough to be eager-beaverish. “What’s it like up there?” “The end of the world.”
― Brian Garfield, Checkpoint Charlie: Stories

“timorous”
― Brian Garfield, Death Wish