Quotes By Lee Child

My mother still calls me Jim and that is about it. Everyone else calls me Lee. My wife calls me whatever.

I'm opposed to censorship of any kind, especially by government. But it's plain common sense that producers should target their product with some kind of sensitivity.

I love visiting LA. It's an endlessly fascinating city, and is, of course, America's entertainment capital. Each time I go, I fall in love with it all over again. That said, it's not the sort of place I'd want to live.

The thriller is not a recent invention. It probably goes back to the dawn of storytelling.

I had been coming to America very frequently for many, many years, so I had plenty of exposure - and maybe the best kind of exposure, because I think first impressions are very important. Maybe I notice stuff that is just subliminal to people who live here all the time.

Writing is showbusiness for shy people. That's how I see it.

It's always tense when you move a character from a book to the screen. Always tense.

I have a kind of old-fashioned, artisan approach.

I need a stimulating environment to write because my books are driven at 100 miles per hour at a time.

I do a little fact checking now and then. Other than that its impact is simply that email has revolutionized communication for me, and my website has built up a community of readers, which is a lot of fun.

I grew up in Birmingham, where they made useful things and made them well.

I love Italian food but that's too generic a term for what's available now: you have to narrow it down to Tuscan, Sicilian, and so on.

There is nothing wrong with just telling the story.

Most actors are small, anyway - at least compared to me.

All of us write wish fulfillment.

It's a tough case and the first time Reacher needs to recruit somebody to help him out. He uses a woman he knew in the army she's a fascinating character.

I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.

In principle if I could not have a home I wouldn't. But not having a home would be too difficult procedurally, going from hotel to hotel, the gap of three hours where you're hungry and tired.

I'd been a thriller reader all my life.

She's a reflection of my fascination with the diversity of America she's totally normal in New York, but a freak in Texas. There are dozens of such clashes in America.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.

We know we need civilization and laws and procedures, but isn't it frustrating? Wouldn't it be great if we could just do what we needed to do?

Practically any Western has a homesteader in trouble, and a mysterious rider shows up off the range, solves the problem over two or three days, and then rides off into the sunset.

I don't need validation, recognition or praise. What I need are facts and the facts are that one of my books gets sold, somewhere in the world, every second.

I'm not really into gourmet food; I'm the kind of guy who just stops by a place that looks good rather than heading for the restaurant of the moment.

I had a brief theater background and loved the backstage world there's more backstage work in television, so I saw a job advertised and applied, and got it. That was back in 1977, when getting jobs was easy.

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.

The British regulatory system was revised, so that bigger profits were encouraged, which removed the option of big spending on programming. Quality just fell off a cliff, and all the old hands either left or were fired for being too expensive.

I write in the afternoon, from about 12 until 6 or 7. I use an upstairs room as my office. Once I get going I keep at it, and it usually takes about six months from the first blank screen until 'The End.'