A Quote by Lee Child

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.
My mother helped me to get past that. She was always there for me, until she dies. I remember she told me once, about big hearts and small hearts, and that not everyone could be blessed with a big one that had room to care for a lot of people. She promised me that mine was big, and that I was the lucky one for it.
She always had a headache, or it was too hot, always, or she pretended to be asleep, or she had her period again, her period, always her period. So much so that Dr. Urbino had dared to say in class, only for the relief of unburdening himself without confession, that after ten years of marriage women had their periods as often as threes times a week.
He knew he should have counted. It was the rule to count to ten in his head before he opened his mouth. It was the rule to count to ten if he wanted to smash a man in the face for saying something he didn't like. It was the rule to count to ten if instinct wasn't needed, but common sense was.
My dad had a 'fro, and I didn't. So I wore his hat and it always hit me in the face, so I just turned it around and it just stuck. It wasn't like I was trying to be a tough guy or change the way that baseball is played. It was just that my dad wore a size 7 1/2, and I had a 6 1/4. It was just too big.
The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.
The first crush of my life was my teacher. I was in 5th grade and she used to teach me maths. She was really hot.
If I should have a daughter, instead of 'Mom,' she's gonna call me 'Point B,' because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, 'Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.'
I was the first person that had been so kind to Iman Abdulmajid. As time went on, and she became successful, signed with an agency, when she had to make big decisions, she wouldn't always talk to an agent, she'd ask me. I'd give her good advice and she'd be on her way. When I had ideas to do things like the Black Girls Coalition, I would always talk to her, she always loved my ideas. She trusts me.
I had an emerald ring that my mother gave me four or five years before she died. She wore it always, I wore it always, and I have given it to my daughter, and she wears it always. This ring belonged originally to my great, great grandfather. It's well over 150 years old.
I think my mum was really very ahead of her time. She wore very little makeup. She really explored the way that she wore clothes in a very honest way. She wore a lot of vintage stuff and mixed it with bespoke men's tailoring and things like that. That was a huge influence on me, seeing a woman in the spotlight carry herself in that kind of way. But mostly, for me, it was just that she was an incredibly honest and sort of natural person.
I'm always touched when I go to events and stuff, to meet fathers who come up to me and thank me and say, "because of you my young daughter knows that she can do anything she sets out to do." And the way young girls are raised now, I don't think there's any doubt that they know they can do anything. And if what goes by the by is that they don't feel they have to be in solidarity with all other women, that's O.K. as long as they know that that strength has been there in the past and can be there in the future for them.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
It's up to the man to not be offended when she tells him what she needs. He shouldn't say, "I know that!" And he shouldn't say, "The woman that I had before you had ten orgasms without her telling me anything!"
In the fifth grade I discovered something I could do better than the other kids. One day, the teacher set up a bunch of chairs, and she had everyone run to the chairs and back while she timed us. I had the fastest time in the whole school!
I was Lady Gaga way before her time. I had a wee kettle for a handbag. Didn't everyone, at some point? One of the teachers used to call me Dame Flora Robson because I had this big, long Victorian skirt. And I wore a Peruvian hat. It was the 1980s - people were wearing lots of lace.
I always knew my mother was different, different from the other mothers in the way she dressed, the way she spoke, but most obviously, the way she mothered. I remember a slumber party where, instead of a sleeping bag, she urged me to bring a small, inflatable mattress because the dust on the floor was liable to aggravate my allergies.
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