Sandford Quotes & Sayings

THE EXCHANGE KEPT LUCAS warm all the way out to the car. He'd jump off a high building before he betrayed Weather, but a little extracurricular flirtation kept the blood circulating; not that all of it went to the brain. — John Sandford

The aisles of the Varied Industries building had grown too coagulated, so Marlys led the girl around the building, the girl's legs churning to keep up. They came out directly behind the fire hydrant that they'd planted the night before, separated from it by the dense crowd. Marlys asked a tall man at the back, "Do you see them yet? — John Sandford

The thing about Botox is that when you've had too much, you then have to fake reactions just to look human--and it's impossible to distinguish real fake reactions from fake fake reactions. — John Sandford

Does a chicken have lips? — John Sandford

Got here half an hour ago and had a look, eyeballin' it," Sawyer said. "It's murder, all right. Tell you something else - the sun went down, and it's as dark as the inside of a horses's ass out here."
"You're sure?"
"Well, I've never actually been inside a horses's ass. — John Sandford

We need to know who it is, if he or she is there," Lucas said. "That person's life could be in danger from the same people who killed Tubbs . . . unless he or she did it. Then, that'd mean you're working with a cold-blooded killer." "Okay. I'll think about it," MacGuire said. "I'm not lying to you here, I really don't know - but I'll think about it, and ask around. — John Sandford

The local farmers, of course, were bitching because the bean and corn harvests were going to be huge and the prices depressed. Of course, if it hadn't rained, they'd be bitching because their crops were small, even if the prices were high. You couldn't win with farmers. — John Sandford

When the bureaucratic details were handled, they broke up. Del, Shrake, and Jenkins followed him back to his office, where they talked some more about the surveillance aspects. A tech would put a tracking bug on Carver's vehicle, and Del would try to get one on Dannon's, if he could do it without being seen. "The big question is: Is he gonna talk, or is he gonna stonewall, or is he gonna shoot, or is he gonna run?" Jenkins said. "That's four questions," Shrake said. "It irritates me that you can't count. — John Sandford

On the way out to Lawrence's, he thought about Palmer's wild reaction. Was there a little fear there? Hard to tell, with all the other possibilities - anger, bigotry, psychosis. — John Sandford

Flowers said, "I got two bottles of water in the car."
"Get them. And get your gun," Lucas said.
"The gun? You think?"
"No. I just like to see you wearing the fuckin' gun for a change," Lucas said. "C'mon, let's get moving. — John Sandford

I could live here," Del said. "No, you couldn't. You'd turn into a coot and hang out at the general store, with your fly down," Lucas said. "You'd be known for goosing middle-aged women. You'd be the town embarrassment. — John Sandford

Schiffer recoiled: "Oh, Jesus Christ, Taryn, don't give me a heart attack," she said, clutching at her chest. "Remember: no sense of humor. How many times do I have to tell you that: No sense of humor. Humor can get you in all kinds of shit and we've got this won, if we don't get funny. — John Sandford

Her Pan-Cake makeup was cracking like a dried-out Dakota lake bed. — John Sandford

Lucas's position was supine: that is, whenever he heard people arguing about it, he wanted to lie down and take a nap. — John Sandford

Lucas was starting to feel like a yo-yo, and Iowa City was the finger. — John Sandford

bleeding heavily, her eyes flat with — John Sandford

Fresh ideas from this group was virtually an oxymoron, Marlys thought, wriggling her butt against the comfortless chair. — John Sandford

Don't give me any shit about that, Lucas - not with your history," Henderson said, irritated. "No matter what happens with me, I'll get her an impressive-sounding staff job in Washington, something involving Virginia agriculture and natural resources," Henderson said. "I'll buy her some top-end TV training, some good threads, lean on my friends for donations. A hot, female, law-and-order Democrat who carries a gun and has major experience in D.C.? Are you kiddin' me? That Tea Party asshole won't know what hit him. He'll be like Toto in the fuckin' tornado. — John Sandford

If there were honorary degrees for assholes, he'd be a doctor of everything," Lily said. — John Sandford

I don't know. He was hit hard. Bleeding out his mouth, bright red blood, so he probably took a hit to his lung. He was alive when they took him into the operating room . . ." Lucas gave him the details he had, then gave the phone to the highway patrolman, who knew Wood, and Wood confirmed Lucas's status. — John Sandford

Women had been on the verge of taking over the world-the Western world, anyway. Then some sexist pig in Silicon Valley invented the cell phone and women took a sidetrack on which all four billion of them would soon be happily talking to each other twenty-four hours a day, getting nothing else done, and Men Would Be Back. — John Sandford

Volvos are fundamentally invisible. — John Sandford

Nuts don't come in bunches. Only grapes do. — John Sandford

Dannon brought the .22 up and shot him in the temple. Carver's head bounced off the side window and Dannon shot him again, the .22 shots deafening inside the truck, but hardly audible outside. Carver slumped, his face not even looking surprised. — John Sandford

They both knew what they were thinking, though neither said it: Taryn Grant had what it took to be president. She had the business background, she understood economics and finance, she had the money wrapped up, she looked terrific, she had a mind that understood the necessary treacheries: a silken Machiavelli. — John Sandford

the truck. Yael was waiting at the front bumper, and as he came up to her, a sheriff's patrol car turned off the road and onto the track and accelerated toward them. Virgil said to Yael, "He's been shot, but he'll live. For the time being, anyway. He says he doesn't know anything — John Sandford

Hey, fuck you," Lucas said. "What!" Pole started to move at Lucas, but saw something in Lucas's eyes that made him take a step back. Bell Wood got between them and Lucas growled, "Stay away from me, asshole. — John Sandford

The gun locked open and he slammed another magazine in. As he did it, he either saw or imagined he saw a ripple moving through the cornfield and fired four more shots at it, then stopped, crouched, and stepped sideways across the nose of the truck, saw Robertson facedown in the driveway gravel. He was alive, pushing up with his hands, getting nowhere. — John Sandford

They were shot with a shotgun and put in garbage bags and thrown under a bridge," Shrake said. "If it wasn't murder, it was a really weird accident. — John Sandford

You've got pretty good taste." She pulled out a suit, looked at it, put it back, pulled out another. "I can remember, you always wore good suits, good-looking suits, even before you were rich."
"I like suits," he said. "They feel good. I like Italian suits, actually. I've had a couple of British suits, and they were okay, but they felt ... constructed. Like I was wearing a building. But the Italians - they know how to make a suit."
"Ever try French suits?"
"Yeah, three or four times. They're okay, but a little ... sharp-looking. They made me feel like a watch salesman."
"How about American suits?"
:Efficient," he said. "Do the job; don't feel like much. You always wear an American suit if you don't want people to notice you. — John Sandford

Cops and schoolteachers," Sloan said with satisfaction. "A cop and schoolteacher bar. The teachers drink like fish. The cops hit on the schoolteachers. One big happy family. — John Sandford

Even thinking was hard. — John Sandford

pleasant-enough place, as cemeteries went, and if somebody had told him that he'd be buried there, after a life of, say, a hundred forty years and much more sex and barbecue, he would have been content with the prospect. — John Sandford

A diplomatic passport for a Tal Zahavi, with a current photo of Yael-1. The same birth date as in the other passport. The interior must have had fifty entry stamps for European and South American countries, plus the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. The woman traveled a lot. — John Sandford

Marlys was a sturdy woman in her fifties, white curls clinging to her scalp like vanilla frosting. She wore rimless glasses, a homemade red-checked gingham dress, and low-topped Nikes. Short-nosed and pale, she had a small pink mouth that habitually pursed in thought, or disapproval. — John Sandford

THIS WOULD BE the first tricky part, they knew. They'd come in on the south side of the fairgrounds, between the swine and sheep barns. There would be cops all over the place - though fewer at night - and they wanted to get to the machinery grounds, where there were always a number of pickups parked. While they had the truck pass, it wouldn't stand a real check. If somebody called in the pass number, it'd show up as lost or stolen. — John Sandford

Lucas was forced to admit it: "No. Not absolutely sure. But pretty sure. The other possibility is that the people who paid for the porn to be dumped on Porter Smalls, knowing that doing so involves a number of felonies, are breaking the link between themselves and the pornography. Breaking the link very professionally. I did the obvious: I looked for professional killers. The only ones I could find" - Lucas nodded at Carver and Dannon - "are employed by you. — John Sandford

Lucas lifted his head to look around and saw that dozens of people were dead or wounded; and that cops were flowing in from everywhere, that fifteen civilians were filming the chaos with their iPhones, that two TV crews were already working it, and that people everywhere were screaming in pain . . . He and Bowden knelt next to Jubek and Jubek's eyes were open and he said, "Hurt," and Lucas could hear more clearly now and said, "Hang on," and Jubek almost laughed and said, "I'm trying, dumbshit. Get me something . . . — John Sandford

It's the way of the world, man. There are the worker bees, and the manager bees. The worker bees take care of the work, the manager bees take care of themselves. — John Sandford

Does Raggedy Ann have a cotton crotch? — John Sandford

Gonna rain like a cow pissin' on a flat rock [drugstore clerk to detective Virgil Flowers] Dark of the Moon, p.7 — John Sandford

He was conservative, especially on the abortion issue, and he was death on taxes; on the other hand, he had a Clintonesque attitude about women, and even a sense of humor about his own peccadilloes. — John Sandford

I am not so afraid that I cannot see the truth. — John Sandford

Detective Virgil and Barlow [bomb-technician] arranged to meet at the Starbucks. Virgil got a grande hot chocolate, no-fat milk, no foam, no whipped cream, and Barlow got a venti latte with an extra shot. As they took a corner table, Virgil said, "Remind me not to stand next to you if you're handling a bomb. That much caffeine, you gotta be shakin' like a hundred-dollar belly dancer."
"At least I'm not drinking like a little girl," Barlow said. — John Sandford

Somewhere along the line, it occurred to him that he hadn't spoken to Virgil Flowers. He'd probably taken the day off, and knowing Flowers, he'd done it in a boat. The thing about Flowers was, in Lucas's humble opinion, you could send him out for a loaf of bread and he'd find an illegal bread cartel smuggling in heroin-saturated wheat from Afghanistan. Either that, or he'd be fishing in a muskie tournament, on government time. You had to keep an eye on him. — John Sandford

If the AG had been a lightbulb instead of a lawyer, he would have been about a twenty-watt. — John Sandford

THE DAY WAS PERFECT: low eighties, bluebird sky, the slightest touch of a breeze. If the Minnesota August lasted all year, nobody would live anywhere else. — John Sandford

a few times, and then pushed the screen door open. "Let's go," Stern said. As they crossed the porch — John Sandford

Good. And I'll tell you, Ron, we are going to put some serious shit on you. We're also going to give you a way out. All of that gets canceled if you talk to Dannon or Grant. They're the targets in this. We've already got a guy willing to swear that Dannon set up the porn deal for Grant. You can walk, or you can get added to the list. I'll see you at three, and we'll decide which it is." Lucas clicked off without giving him a chance to answer. — John Sandford

Coyotes don't eat dachshunds," Johnson said. "Dachshunds were bred to go down badger tunnels and drag the badgers out by their ass. A good-sized dachshund could weigh thirty pounds and has jaws like a crocodile. Old Dixie would straight-out fuck up a coyote." "Didn't know that," Virgil said. - — John Sandford

Good," Lucas said. "And hey - relax. Gonna be all right." "No, it won't," she said. "I can almost guarantee that whatever it is, it won't be all right. — John Sandford

Well, I am becoming doddering and old but I have - I'm writing two books a year now. It's like 220,000 words or something like finished, and, honest to God, I can't do that. I really do need the help of, you know, other people working with me. — John Sandford

When any worthwhile thing is done in the world, it's usually done by somebody weird. — John Sandford

First she got Jesus, probably fifteen years ago, and that didn't work out, so she tried Scientology, and that didn't help, but it cost a lot of money, so she tried Buddhism and yoga, and those didn't work, so she started drinking. I think that helped, because she's still drinking. — John Sandford

That hadn't occurred to me," Lucas said. "Because you're not a natural politician," the governor said. He laughed again. "This is the kind of thing that makes life interesting." "Unless you're Dannon. Or Carver." "Well, yeah, I suppose," the governor said. "I'll assign somebody to say a prayer for them. — John Sandford

These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt. — John Sandford

It's okay with us," Dannon said, and now there was something in his eye, a little spark of pleasure, a job well done. Lucas thought, This isn't good. — John Sandford

Lot of Irish in Mexico. The Mexican name, Obregon? It comes from O'Brien. — John Sandford

Clay pulled Lucas along and as they were approaching the back door, he called, "Madam Secretary . . . I need you to meet this guy." She stopped and turned and looked at Lucas and then Clay, did a quick price check on Lucas's suit, and asked, "How do you do? — John Sandford

Cinnamon Girl" wasn't right for this day, for this time, for what was about to happen. If he were to have music, he thought, maybe Shostakovich, a few measures from the Lyric Waltz in Jazz Suite Number 2. Something sweet, yet pensive, with a taste of tragedy; Qatar was an intellectual, and he knew his music. — John Sandford

Personally, I'm a registered Democrat, and my wife has contributed to the campaigns of a number of Democratic candidates, including yours, I believe, though I have not. There's no politics in this, Ms. Grant. What there is, is a vicious sabotage attempt, which would have reduced Senator Smalls's reputation to tatters, and very probably a murder. So, if we could get back to the reason I'm here: you say you knew nothing of the pornography, and you didn't know Bob Tubbs? — John Sandford

If something did happen to Bowden, how would that affect your chances?" Lucas asked. "What a rotten, cynical question to ask. I'm proud of you," Henderson said. — John Sandford

He went on like that for a while, and before he was done, Lucas had dismissed him as being ineffectually goofy, although his ideas about the killing were roughly the same as Lucas's own. Holly said he had no idea who on the staff might have been involved with Tubbs, or might be working as a spy. — John Sandford

The woman had thick plastic glasses and looked up at them, eyes large as eggs behind the lenses, and asked, "Jeez, who got murdered? — John Sandford

The Times, whose editorial portentousness approached traumatic constipation, tried to suppress its glee under the bushel basket of feigned sadness that another civil servant had been caught in a sexual misadventure; they hadn't even bothered to use the word "alleged. — John Sandford

Give me the goddamn names, Grace," Lucas said. "C'mon. Please. Talk to me. Save yourself." "Fuck you." - FORD CAME BACK, looked at Lucas, asked, "Get a name?" "Not unless it's 'Fuck you,'" Lucas said. — John Sandford

LUCAS LOOKED AT HIS WATCH: getting late. He walked down the hall, saw Shrake on the phone at his desk, went that way. Shrake saw him coming, held up a finger, said, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, send me the paper. Okay. I gotta go." He hung up and said, "You're quivering." "You got some time?" "Ah . . . no. Not if you want me to keep pushing the Jackson thing," Shrake said. "All right. Where's Jenkins?" Lucas asked. "He's getting his oil changed," Shrake said. "He's . . ." "No, no, not that," Shrake said. "He was going down to a Rapid Oil Change, getting the oil changed in his car. — John Sandford

Most people like a little sex in their novels. — John Sandford

And he still had those two big nuts in his pocket that he'd picked up from the Purdys' barn workshop, the one with the green-and-yellow overspray on the floor, a green-and-yellow spray that didn't match the hard green and yellow of the John Deere, but did match the green and yellow of fair fire hydrants . . . and those nuts in his pocket. Why would you need a whole bag of big nuts, but no bolts? You wouldn't - unless they were shrapnel. And that nagging intuition he'd had by the Varied Industries building: he'd been walking by fire hydrants all morning, the same yellow and green as the overspray on the Purdys' barn floor. A bomb. The Purdys had built a bomb. The farm kid who'd been brain-injured by IEDs in Iraq had built himself an IED. A bomb disguised as a fire hydrant that was probably standing on the Concourse, right where the candidates would be marching by, right on the curb. — John Sandford

JENKINS AND VIRGIL walked back up the valley to the Ruff house, and found Muddy inside, tootling on a black electric guitar, a complex — John Sandford

For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind's delight, for the mystic harmony, linking sense to sound and sight; Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise. — Folliott Sandford Pierpoint

When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?' — John Sandford

Oh yeah, I heard you got born again.' she said. 'Which you needed since they fucked up the first time. — John Sandford

trust no one, everything breaks, nothing works as advertised, and if anything can go wrong, it will. — John Sandford

I'll have to think about it, but I can do that," Taryn said. "Of course you can," Dannon said. "But don't think about ways to trick them or outsmart them. Just focus on your ignorance. You don't know anything, but you're willing to speculate, and you'd like some information from them - to hear what they think." "What about you and Carver?" "We can handle it," Dannon said. "We've spent half our lives lying to cops, of one kind or another. Nobody else on the staff knows. Might not be a bad idea for us to stay away completely . . . unless they ask for us." "Let's do that," Taryn said. "Maybe you two could start doing some advance security work." "I'll talk to Ron," Dannon said. He heard high heels, and said, "Here comes Alice. — John Sandford

They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly. — John Sandford

copy of an aerial photo from the engineering department. — John Sandford

The advanced interstellar culture operates on a barter system. Never saw that one coming. — John Sandford

Like the NRA says, it's better to have a machine gun and not need it than to need a machine gun and not have it. — John Sandford

If I get killed, put my boots back on me. — John Sandford

Virgil had read once that Grandma Moses was a primitive painter because she thought snow was white. The writer said if you really looked at it, snow was hardly ever white. It mostly was a gentler version of the color of the sky - blue, gray, orange in the evenings and mornings, often with purple shadows. When he looked, sure enough, the guy was right, and Grandma Moses had her head up her ass. — John Sandford

What!" Schiffer blurted, not a question. Lucas had been watching Carver and Dannon again, and again, their eyes were blank; if they'd been lizards, Lucas thought, a nictitating membrane might have dropped slowly across them. — John Sandford

Rose Marie, wrapped in a wool shawl, was sitting on a lounge chair, smoking a cigarette; nicotine gum, she said, was for pussies. She was a short woman, going to weight, with an ever-changing hair color. — John Sandford

Impossible to know. The thing is, you take a fork in the road, it doesn't always work out for the better . . . but sometimes it does. It must. — John Sandford

Lucas's Colt .45 Gold Cup and Beretta 92F, and drove up — John Sandford

LOUISE WAS SORTING nuts and bolts into metal bins at the back of the somnambulant hardware store. — John Sandford

As an individual with my own hurts, I go into the Garden (Gethsemane) as often as I need to. There I identify with the pain in the other, with my part in that pain, my part in tempting someone to wound me. I experience the other's pain, and God's pain, and am devastated - because their pain becomes my own. Feeling such anguish, I can forgive, or deeply repent, either for myself or on behalf of the other. — John Sandford

For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild;
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise this our Sacrifice of grateful praise. — Folliott Sandford Pierpoint

Everything we're doing is freakin' iffy. That's what makes it so much fun. — John Sandford

The press conference was held in a courtroom at the new county courthouse, a space that did its best to translate justice into laminated wood. — John Sandford

The day after the assignation with Barstad, the low stacked-heels of Charlotte Neumann, an ordained Episcopalian priest, author of New Art Modalities: Woman/Sin, Sin/Woman, S/in/ister, which, the week before, had broken through the top-10,000 barrier of the Barnes & Noble on-line bestseller list, and who was, not incidentally, the department chairperson, echoed down the hallway and stopped at his door. — John Sandford

love of money is the root of all evils.' Timothy, six-ten. — John Sandford

LIKE ANY GOOD MINNESOTAN, Lucas rarely missed the TV weather before going to bed. — John Sandford

GRAY-EYED COLE SAT in his bedroom window, looking out over the road, a scoped Ruger 10/22 in his hands. Squirrel rifle. Below him, a quilt hung on the wire clothesline, airing out. Before the end of the day, the quilt would smell like early-summer fields, with a little gravel dust mixed in. A wonderful smell, a smell like home. — John Sandford

When something comes from so deep inside you that it is beyond your understanding, then you must judge everything by that standard. — Rick Sandford

You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life. — John Sandford

Mount Pleasant was an older town, where no two houses, standing side by side, seemed to come out of the same architectural style, with nineteenth-century Victorians up against pastel-colored postwar ramblers. Most of the houses had traditional flower gardens with marigolds and zinnias, and some with head-high sunflowers. — John Sandford

Thanks, Alice," Grant said, and to Lucas, "I don't like you, and I suspect you don't like me, but try to be fair. Don't stick yourself into this campaign. Don't sabotage me." "I'm not trying - " "Whether you're trying or not, that's the effect," Grant said. "Wait a week or ten days, let the election take place, then do your worst. But give me a chance. I've worked very hard for it. — John Sandford

With most of my books, I'll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the scene pop. — John Sandford

Quintana had known Tubbs since high school; Tubbs had been one of the slightly nerdy intellectuals on the edge of the popular clique, while Quintana had been metal shop and a football lineman. — John Sandford