Matthew Quirk > Quotes

“The US thought the Cold War was over, but for Russia it had never ended.”
― Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent

“tritium”
― Matthew Quirk, Dead Man Switch

“You do the right thing and follow the rules,” Greg said. “And then one day you start to wonder if those are two different things.”
― Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent

“It was a long time ago, but there were moments, like now, when the past would come at him so vividly, a stab of pain. It was like stepping on a tiny piece of glass a month after you thought you’d swept up all the shards.”
― Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent

“They looted my country. Scavengers, this dictator we have now chief among them. Practically pulled the wires from the walls of headquarters to sell for scrap. Imagine if someone turned the nation you loved into one big mafiya. Murdered anyone who stood in their way, for greed alone.”
― Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent

“No. That’s not it at all.” “Last chance,” she said. “Annie. About Jack—” She slammed her palm down on the table. I saw her grit her teeth in pain. A bead of blood grew on her finger where the Swiss Army knife had cut the skin. I stood to help her. “I’m fine,” she said, watched it for a moment, then dabbed a red stain on an envelope. “This isn’t about Jack, Mike. It’s about us.” She pushed back her chair. “You know what? I’m exhausted. I don’t think I can do this now. We can talk more in the morning.” We were both burned out on too much work and too little sleep. “I can explain all this, Annie. It’s going to be okay.” I followed her as she walked toward the landing. “I think I’d like to be alone.”
― Matthew Quirk, The Directive

“He heard a quiet thock, like an electrical relay opening, coming from the rear of the second Suburban that had been here last night, near the gear cabinets. The faintest smell hit his nose—like an old penny or the electric scent of a model train engine.”
― Matthew Quirk, Inside Threat

“valediction.”
― Matthew Quirk, Dead Man Switch

“President Kline sat at the Resolute Desk, turning the pages in a book as reverently as if he were handling a Gutenberg Bible. The volume was bound in black leather and embossed with the seal of the Department of Justice above the title: Presidential Emergency Action Documents. The PEADs were a series of laws and directives, drafted in advance, that could be put into place after a national catastrophe—a nuclear attack or coup takes out government leadership, a pandemic kills half the population, the grid goes down. The specifics were one of the most closely held secrets in government, but in essence they were orders to establish martial law through presidential decree, bypassing Congress and suspending civil liberties and the Constitution if necessary. Reading through them was the stuff of nightmares, a glimpse of how America would attempt to survive its darkest hours since the Civil War.”
― Matthew Quirk, Inside Threat

“Vice President Sutherland.”
― Matthew Quirk, Inside Threat

“Family’s not all they make it out to be. Trust me.”
― Matthew Quirk, The Directive

“A group of protesters shook signs—“Tyrant” and “Killer-in-Chief”—and shouted slogans on the brick sidewalk, facing off with a row of Secret Service agents behind a steel barricade.”
― Matthew Quirk, Inside Threat

“Don’t diminish yourself. Stand up. People may call you a bitch. That’s fine. Bitches are the only thing keeping the wheels from coming off this country.”
― Matthew Quirk, Red Warning