Robert Crais > Quotes

“There isn't so much love in the world that you can turn it away when it's offered.”
― Robert Crais

“She asked me why I always had something flip to say. I said that I didn't know, but having been blessed with the gift, I felt obliged to use it.”
― Robert Crais

“Adults always wonder what to say and how to say it when they're talking to a child. You want to be wise, but all you are is a child yourself in a larger body. Nothing is ever what it seems. The things that you think you know are never certain. I know that now. I wish that I didn't, but I do.”
― Robert Crais, The Last Detective

“People want you to be ordinary.”
― Robert Crais, The Last Detective

“Talk to her, goddamnit. She ain't a stick of furniture. She is one of God's creatures, and she will hear you. I see these goddamned people walkin' dogs, yakking on their phones, makes me wanna kick their sissy asses. What they got a dog for, they want to talk on their phones? That dog there will understand you, Officer James. She will understand what's in your heart. Am I just shouting at the grass and dog shit out here, or are you reading what I am telling you?”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“It's easy to sound good. All you do is leave in the parts where you act tough and forget the parts where you get shoved around.”
― Robert Crais, The Monkey's Raincoat

“Stalking the Angel
[Joe]"I could off anybody in this place five times over."
[Elvis]"Could you off someone and get away with you here?"
[Joe]Head shake. "I'm too good even for me.”
― Robert Crais, Stalking the Angel

“Some of us find our way with a single light to guide us; others lose themselves even when the star field is as sharp as a neon ceiling. Ethics may not be situational, but feelings are. We learn to adjust, and, over time, the stars we use to guide ourselves come to reside within rather than without.”
― Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem

“When you see someone, all you see is what they let you see.”
― Robert Crais, The Last Detective

“A dog could see your heart in your eyes, Budress told him, and dogs were drawn to our hearts.”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“Pike put down the cat. He slid from Pike's arms like molasses and puddled at his feet.”
― Robert Crais, Chasing Darkness

“Criminals did not have friends. They had associates, suppliers, fences, whores, sugar daddies, enablers, dealers, collaborators, co-conspirators, victims and bosses, any of whom they might rat out and none of whom could be trusted.”
― Robert Crais, The Two Minute Rule

“As a man gets older, his regrets changes. Especially when he's gotten into the Scotch.”
― Robert Crais, The Forgotten Man

“Efficiency and focus are the keys to success.”
― Robert Crais, Voodoo River

“The best dog training was based on the reward system. You did not punish a dog for doing wrong, you rewarded the dog for doing right. The dog did something you wanted, you reinforced the behavior with a reward - pet'm, tell'm they're a good dog, let'm play with a toy. The standard reward for a K-9 working dog was a hard plastic ball with a hole drilled through it where Leland liked to smear a little peanut butter.”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“Every second we have with these fine animals is a blessing. No creature, human or otherwise, will love you with such devotion, or trust you so fully. Remember this, Officer James. These dogs will lay their precious hearts bare to you, and hold back no part for themselves. Can anyone else in your pathetic excuse for a life say the same? Such trust is a gift from God Almighty above, so best you be worthy.”
― Robert Crais, The Promise

“These dogs are not machines, Goddammit. They are alive! They are living, feeling, warm-blooded creatures of God, and they will love you with all their hearts! They will love you when your wives and husbands sneak behind your backs. They will love you when your ungrateful misbegotten children piss on your graves! They will see and witness your greatest shame, and will not judge you! These dogs will be the truest and best partners you can ever hope to have, and they will give their lives for you. And all they ask, all they want or need, all it costs YOU to get ALL of that, is a simple word of kindness. Goddammit to hell, the ten best men I know aren’t worth the worst dog here, and neither are any of you, and I am Dominick Goddamned Leland, and I am never wrong!”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“Scott walked away and did not look back. They knew Maggie would try to follow him, and she did. In her world, they were a pack, and the pack stayed together.

Maggie whined and barked, and he heard her claws scrape the tarmac like files. Budress had cautioned him not to look back or wave bye-bye or any of the silly things people did. Dogs weren't people. Eye contact would make her struggle harder to reach him. A dog could see your heart in your eyes, Budress told him, and dogs were drawn to our hearts.”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“there was a quality of loneliness to her that comes when your only friend walks away and you don’t know why and there’s no one else and never will be. A left-behind look.”
― Robert Crais, Stalking The Angel

“A man with friends is the wealthiest man in the world.”
― Robert Crais, Free Fall

“That dog is a Marine!”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“A fine layer of ash had blown into the carport, showing a single set of cat prints going from the side of the house to the cat hatch built into my door. People in Minnesota see things like this with snow.”
― Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem

“The Los Angeles River is small, but mean. People who don't know the truth of it make fun of our river; all they see is a tortured trickle that snakes along a concrete gutter like some junkie's vein. They don't know that we put the river in concrete to save ourselves; they don't know that the river is small because it's sleeping, and that every year and sometimes more it wakes. Before we put the river in that silly trough centered on a concrete plain at the bottom of those concrete walls, it flashed to life with the rain to wash away trees and houses and bridges, and cut its banks to breed new channels almost as if it was looking for people to kill. It found what it looked for too many times. Now, when it wakes, the river climbs those concrete walls so high that wet claws rake the freeways and bridges as it tries to pull down a passing car or someone caught out in the storm. Chain-link fences and barbed wire spine along the top of the walls to keep out people, but the walls keep in the river. The concrete is a prison. The prison works, most of the time.”
― Robert Crais, The Last Detective

“These dogs are not machines, goddamnit. They are alive! They are living, feeling, warm-blooded creatures of God, and they will love you with all their hearts! They will love you when your wives and husbands sneak behind your backs. They will love you when your ungrateful misbegotten children piss on your graves! They will see and witness your greatest shame, and will not judge you! These dogs will be the truest and best partners you can ever hope to have, and they will give their lives for you. And all they ask, all they want or need, all it costs YOU to get ALL of that, is a simple word of kindness.”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“I love L.A. It's a great, sprawling, spread-to-hell city that protects us by its sheer size. Four hundred sixty-five square miles. Eleven million beating hearts in Los Angeles County, documented and not. Eleven million. What are the odds? The girl raped beneath the Hollywood sign isn't your sister, the boy back-stroking in a red pool isn't your son, the splatter patterns on the ATM machine are sourceless urban art. We're safe that way. When it happens it's going to happen to someone else.”
― Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem

“The best dog training was based on the reward system. You did not punish a dog for doing wrong, you rewarded the dog for doing right. The dog did something you wanted, you reinforced the behavior with a reward—pet’m, tell’m they’re a good dog, let’m play with a toy.”
― Robert Crais, Suspect

“Moths swarmed around the parking lot lamps, banging into the glass with a steady tap-tap-tap, and I wondered if they welcomed the dawn. At dawn, they could stop slamming their heads into the thing that forever kept them from the light. People don't have a dawn. We just keep slamming away until it kills us.”
― Robert Crais

“Prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish, and someday you will be a real boy.’ The Blue Fairy said that. In Pinocchio.”
― Robert Crais

“Sometimes. Sometimes you can change what’s there, sometimes what’s there changes you.”
― Robert Crais, Stalking The Angel

“Muthuhfuckin' muthuhfucker! I oughta come over there kick your ass myself, worryin'me like this? I got your back homes! I got your back!”
― Robert Crais, The Two Minute Rule