Quote

The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end.

Lee Child

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Lee Child
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: October 29
Author
Film Actor
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Coventry
England
UK
Jim Grant
James D. Jim Grant
Asks
Write
Ends
Thriller
Writing
Thrillers
Way
Answer
Beginning
Question
Answers

More quotes by Lee Child

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I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.
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I'm not afraid of death. Death's afraid of me.
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I had a teacher once, grade school somewhere. Philippines, I think, because she always wore a big white hat. So it was somewhere hot. I was always twice the size of the other kids, and she used to say to me: count to ten before you get mad, Reacher. And I've counted way past ten on this one. Way past.
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I'd been a thriller reader all my life.
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Slippery slope. I carry a spare shirt, pretty soon I'm carrying spare pants. Then I'd need a suitcase. Next thing I know, I've got a house and a car and a savings plan and I'm filling out all kinds of forms.
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The key to thrillers is vicarious pleasure.
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For men, as they get bogged down with responsibilities, commitments, bureaucracy, it is a fantasy just to think of shedding everything literally, walking away with nothing at all, and just hitting the road.
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It's a kind of zen question: if you write a book and no one reads it, is it really a book?
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All of us write wish fulfillment.
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Imagine the uproar if the Federal government tried to make everyone wear a radio transmitter around their neck so we can keep track of their movements. But people happily carry their cell phones in their purses and pockets.
Lee Child
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I have the thing worked out - the trick or the surprise or the pivotal fact. Then I just start somewhere and let the story work itself out.
Lee Child
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I know I'm smarter than an armadillo
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A handgun at two hundred feet is the same thing as crossing your fingers and making a wish.
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I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.
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You see something scary, you should stand up and step toward it, not away from it. Instinctively, reflexively, in a raging fury.
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Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
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So long as readers keep reading and my publishers keep publishing, I plan to keep on writing. I'd have to be an idiot to be burnt-out in this job.
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I have a kind of old-fashioned, artisan approach.
Lee Child
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People who wear glasses, without them they always look unfocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed.
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It gives me some kind of chance to survive the night. How are those better odds? If you come back with me, you're guaranteed to survive the night. No, Reacher said. If I come back with you, I'm guaranteed to die of shame.
Lee Child