C.J. Box Quotes & Sayings

THE OLD FAITHFUL area was the largest complex in the park, consisting of hundreds of cabins, the Snow Lodge, retail stores, souvenir shops and snack bars, a rambling Park Service visitor center, and the showpiece structure of the entire park: the hundred-plus-year-old Old Faithful Inn that stood in sharp, gabled, epic relief against the star-washed sky. — C.J. Box

In Joe's experience, the person who talked the most very often had the least to say. — C.J. Box

FEDERAL LANDOWNERSHIP (TOP 12 STATES) STATE TOTAL SQUARE MILES % OWNED BY FEDERAL GOV. 1. Nevada 61,548 87.6 2. Utah 35,723 68 3. Alaska 244,627 67 4. Idaho 34,520 65.2 5. Oregon 34,084 55.5 6. California 49,842 49.9 7. Wyoming 30,902 49.7 8. Arizona 32,228 44.3 9. Colorado 25,851 38.9 10. New Mexico 28,143 36.2 11. Washington 13,984 32.8 12. Montana 29,718 31.9 Source: National Wilderness Institute — C.J. Box

I often think that in the world we live in today, where we are threatened by forces as violent and primitive as anything we have ever faced, that it would be wise to look back a little ourselves and embrace our heritage. We were once a nation of hunters. And not the effete, European-style hunters who did it for sport. We hunted for our food, our independence. It's what made us who we are. But, like so many other virtues that made us unique, we have, as a society, forgotten where we came from and how we got here. What was once both noble and essential has become perverted and indefensible. — C.J. Box

...there is no sound in nature that makes men move along faster than the pumping of a shotgun. — C.J. Box

there were three kinds of thermal features in the world: geysers, mud pots, and fumaroles (steam vents), and Yellowstone featured them all. — C.J. Box

Keeley used the opening to bury the knife into Hank Scarlett's heart. It took three tries. — C.J. Box

Think globally and act locally. — C.J. Box

Pronghorn antelope were the second fastest mammals on earth - only an African cheetah could outrun them. — C.J. Box

AS A HUNTER I am looked down upon in Western society. I am portrayed as a brute. I am denigrated and spat upon, and thought of as a slow-witted anachronism, the dregs of a discredited culture. This happened quickly when one looks at human history. The skills I possess - the ability to track, hunt, kill, and dress out my prey so it can be served at a table to feed others - were prized for tens of thousands of years. Hunters fed those in the tribe and family who could not hunt well or did not hunt because they weren't physically able to. The success of the hunter produced not only healthy food and clothing, tools, medicine, and amenities, but a direct hot-blooded connection with God and the natural world. The hunter was the provider, and exalted as such. — C.J. Box

her head and her face was in shadow. She'd pushed — C.J. Box

I really think more fledgling novelists - and many current and even established novelists - should get out into the real world and cover local politics, sports, culture, and crime and write it up on deadline. — C.J. Box

Way too many fat people in shorts. — C.J. Box

We're trivial pissants in the big scheme of things, fleas, fly shit in the pepper. — C.J. Box

Jim Harrison's novels, John McPhee's nonfiction, Flannery O'Connor's short stories, and the crime novels of John Sandford, Ken Bruen, and T. Jefferson Parker. His books — C.J. Box

were all so sure it was Dallas. Maybe next time you'll listen — C.J. Box

Like most men, he had a tough time believing that his wife had had any kind of interesting life before she met him. Which was ridiculous on its face. — C.J. Box

I do like the research part of writing, I must admit. — C.J. Box

Because it's indicative of a tired mind-set. It's nothing more than mental jerking off: puffed-up officials trying to make order out of random acts when all around them their world is about to explode - but they just don't know it, or care. It's like trying to find the fly shit in the pepper. I mean, who cares? — C.J. Box

I love to feature children and young adults as real people - flawed, naive, virtuous, venal - but real. I think it adds nuance and depth to the stories that wouldn't exist without them. — C.J. Box

The headless trunk was discovered impaled on a metal fencepost on the edge of the town park. — C.J. Box

We are both disciples of the Louis Jordan song 'What's the Use of Getting Sober (When You're Gonna Get Drunk Again). — C.J. Box

of cash and apologized to his stepmother and half sisters for meeting — C.J. Box

Joe didn't like talking so much. He had already used more words in this room than he had in the past month. But he had no choice but to continue. Self-doubt began to creep into his consciousness, like a black storm cloud easing over the top of the mountains. He wasn't sure this was a job he could do well, a role he could play competently. Joe liked working the margins, keeping his mouth shut, observing from the sidelines. He did his best to block out the image of the thunderhead rolling over. — C.J. Box

those losses were the result of wild game, such as elk herds eating haystacks meant — C.J. Box

a bunch of granola eaters who hate George Bush. — C.J. Box

there's nothing worse on this earth than privileged bureaucratic assholes who work the system. they never get caught, and if they do, there are no real consequences. — C.J. Box

It seems like the good guys turned out to be the bad guys, and the bad guys weren't all that bad. — C.J. Box

like to see Clay McCann thrown in prison because he doesn't like the idea of a man getting away with murder in his state, despite the weird legal circumstances of this one. — C.J. Box

Joe nodded. "We're required to report bullet wounds. — C.J. Box

Wyomingites, Joe had observed, didn't know what to do when it rained except get out of it, watch it through the window, and wait for it to go away. — C.J. Box

Nothing spells trouble like two drunk cowboys with a rocket launcher. — C.J. Box

In Wyoming, the people owned the game animals, and they took their ownership to heart. — C.J. Box

the Eight Percent Rule to McCann. "It's really very simple," he said, using the same melodic voice he used to pet and stroke the jury. "I have to convince one juror out of twelve to vote with us. One of twelve is eight percent, give or take. Not that I need to convince him our client is innocent, understand. I just need to establish an intimate partnership with that one fellow or lady in a crowd who is contrary. The man or woman who has an ax to grind. My theory, and you saw it happen twice, is that in any group of people forced to be together, at least eight percent of them will go against the majority if for no other reason than to shove it up their ass - if they have an authority figure they can trust to be on their side. I am that leader in the courtroom. — C.J. Box

a Nean derthal with a badge. — C.J. Box

Yellowstone, a place so special and awe-inspiring that after exploring it in 1871, the Hayden Expedition conceived of the original concept of the world's first national park - a set-aside of 2. 2 million acres containing more than ten thousand thermal features, canyons, waterfalls, and wildlife - so no man or corporation could ever own it. — C.J. Box

Every place in West, it seemed, was always for sale. — C.J. Box

poleaxed with exuberance. Keeping to dirt roads, — C.J. Box

On the third day of their honeymoon, infamous environmental activist Stewie Woods and his new bride, Annabel Bellotti, were spiking trees in the forest when a cow exploded and blew them up. Until then, their marriage had been happy. — C.J. Box

Seems like people always want to think they're doomed. It brings them some kind of black comfort, I guess.

Nate — C.J. Box

Stops at the end of the road collected Clyde Lidgards like dams collected silt. — C.J. Box

THE AGENTS DROVE another hour north and crossed the border into Wyoming. Instantly, the car was buffeted by gusts of wind. "Where are the trees?" Baker asked. "They blew away," Singewald said. — C.J. Box

We recycle, don't we, Alex? And we replaced all of our lightbulbs. You know, with the ones that don't work very well? And one of my cars is a Prius. It's not like I don't care. — C.J. Box

As a reader, I'm often put off by authors and story-lines without families or children and all of the angst and joy they bring with them. — C.J. Box

Children were not pets, not furniture, not items put on earth to bring pleasure to people who owned them, she raged to herself. — C.J. Box

Hide in plain sight, that was the way out here. He would learn something from that. — C.J. Box

I know Edmond Locard's Principle, the central theory of modern forensic crime-scene investigation: something is always left behind. — C.J. Box