Shooting Quotes

“He looks up at me with his night-colored eyes, beautiful and terrible all at once. “For a moment,” he says, “I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me.”

I make a face at him. “And what made you decide it wasn’t?”

He grins up at me. “They missed.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Adventures of Sally

“Nothing is impossible to kill. It's just that sometimes after you kill something you have to keep shooting it until it stops moving”
― Mira Grant, Feed

“Do not mourn me, friends
I fall as a shooting star
Into the next life”
― John Scalzi, Old Man's War

“No, you don't shoot things. You capture them. Photography means painting with light. And that's what you do. You paint a picture only by adding light to the things you see.”
― Katja Michael

“Everyone who is not happy must be shot.”
― John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I give you The Eagle’s Covenant.”
― Michael Parker, The Eagle's Covenant

“It’s what happens when you shoot someone,” Wayne pointed out. “At least, usually someone has the good sense to get dead when you go to all the trouble to shoot them.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Alloy of Law

“Stupid deer," I said, embarrassed about being startled. "We need a ladder."

"I think they're easier to shoot with a rifle."

"I'm not talking about the deer," I said, hitting Milo on the back of his shoulder. "We need a ladder to look over the wall."

"Or a catapult," Milo said seriously.”
― Obert Skye, Pillage

“I'm a disgruntled ex-civil servant, and I'm armed. If you don't process my license right now I'm going to start making small, yet significant holes in people.”
― Howard Tayler, The Tub of Happiness

“Now standing in one corner of a boxing ring with a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, shooting a bullet weighing only 40 grains and with a striking energy of 51 foot pounds at 25 feet from the muzzle, I will guarantee to kill either Gene Tunney or Joe Louis before they get to me from the opposite corner. This is the smallest caliber pistol cartridge made; but it is also one of the most accurate and easy to hit with, since the pistol has no recoil. I have killed many horses with it, cripples and bear baits, with a single shot, and what will kill a horse will kill a man. I have hit six dueling silhouettes in the head with it at regulation distance in five seconds. It was this type of pistol that Millen boys’ colleague, Abe Faber, did all his killings with. Yet this same pistol bullet fired at point blank range will not dent a grizzly’s skull, and to shoot a grizzly with a .22 caliber pistol would simply be one way of committing suicide”
― Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway on Hunting

“...when one considers that there are more than 750,000 police officers in the United States and that these officers have tens of millions of interactions with citizens each year, it is clear that police shootings are extremely rare events and that few officers--less than one-half of 1 percent each year--ever shoot anyone.”
― David Klinger, Into the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force

“The Hotel dining-room, like most of the others I was to find in the Highlands, had its walls covered with pictures of all sorts of wild game, living or in the various postures of death that are produced by sport. Between these pictures the walls were alert with the stuffed heads of deer, furnished with antlers of every degree of magnificence. A friend of mine has a theory that these pictures of dying birds and wounded beasts are intended to whet the diner's appetite, and perhaps they did in the more lusty age of Victoria; but I found they had the opposite effect on me, and had to keep my eyes from straying too often to them. In one particular hotel this idea was carried out with such thoroughness that the walls of its dining room looked like a shambles, they presented such an overwhelming array of bleeding birds, beasts and fishes. To find these abominations on the walls of Highland hotels, among a people of such delicacy in other things, is peculiarly revolting, and rubs in with superfluous force that this is a land whose main contemporary industry is the shooting down of wild creatures; not production of any kind but wholesale destruction. This state of things is not the fault of the Highlanders, but of the people who have bought their country and come to it chiefly to kill various forms of life.”
― Edwin Muir, Scottish Journey

“Drew had never before shot like he did that day, nor has he since. It was something to see. The contest had just begun when he walked up, aimed, and felled a cluster from the very top of the boughs.”
― Deeanne Gist, A Bride Most Begrudging

“I do not shoot with my hand,'" Eddie said. He suddenly felt far away, strange to himself. It was the way he'd felt when he had seen first the slingshot and then the key in pieces of wood, just waiting for him to whittle them free ... and at the same time this feeling was not like that at all.
Roland was looking at him oddly. "Yes, Eddie, you say true. A gunslinger shoots with his mind. What have you thought of?"
"Nothing." He might have said more, but all at once a strange image-a strange memory-intervened: Roland hunkering by Jake at one of their stopping-points on the way to Lud. Both of them in front of an unlit campfire. Roland once more at his everlasting lessons. Jake's turn this time. Jake with the flint and steel, trying to quicken the fire. Spark after spark licking out and dying in the dark. And Roland had said that he was being silly. That he was just being ... well ... silly.
"No," Eddie said. "He didn't say that at all. At least not to the kid, he didn't."
"Eddie?" Susannah. Sounding concerned. Almost frightened.
Well why don't you ask him what he said, bro? That was Henry's voice, the voice of the Great Sage and Eminent Junkie. First time in a long time. Ask him, he's practically sitting right next to you, go on and ask him what he said. Quit dancing around like a baby with a load in his diapers.
Except that was a bad idea, because that wasn't the way things worked in Roland's world. In Roland's world everything was riddles, you didn't shoot with your hand but with your mind, your motherfucking mind, and what did you say to someone who wasn't getting the spark into the kindling? Move your flint in closer, of course, and that's what Roland had said: Move your flint in closer, and hold it steady.
Except none of that was what this was about. It was close, yes, but close only counts in horseshoes, as Henry Dean had been wont to say before he became the Great Sage and Eminent Junkie. Eddie's memory was jinking a little because Roland had embarrassed him ... shamed him ... made a joke at his expense ...
Probably not on purpose, but ... something. Something that had made him feel the way Henry always used to make him feel, of course it was, why else would Henry be here after such a long absence?”
― Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

“Living a life of greed is something akin to shooting a gun while holding it backwards. And it would behoove us to remember that greed is an excellent marksman.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The USA is no longer the home of free speech.”
― Steven Magee

“Free speech is a fond memory of the past in the USA.”
― Steven Magee

“The police ultimately pay the price for poor customer service when armed citizens start shooting them.”
― Steven Magee

“Then let me ask you this—why do you think Bill singled out JBD after murdering his own girlfriend?”
― Caleb Pinkerton, The Suicide Journal

“I guess I’m just wondering what the difference is between a guy like Bill and a guy like me. Maybe not that much, ya know? We both went to the same school and were taught by the same teachers and went to the same church.”
― Caleb Pinkerton, The Suicide Journal

“I’ve lost a friend for reasons I don’t understand.” I raised my hand for effect. “Yes, my hand is healing, but I still can’t sleep at night. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fall asleep when you are in pain and all you can see is your friend dying while you sit there and do nothing?”
― Caleb Pinkerton, The Suicide Journal

“We can't just shoot them, these are our fellow citizens”
― Bob Hobbs, Preparedness 101: A Zombie Pandemic

“It is like they have put into your brain something that makes you
think bad thoughts. I highly doubt that the labeled as mentally "ill"
have it as inherent in their dna. They may have been manipulated
from some secret gun.”
― Maria Karvouni, Reality Is Just A Possible Fantasy

“Sometimes the universe explodes out of my muzzle.”
― Dark Night Beacon

“Badenoch encapsulates the dichotomy of the sporting estate. Rich southern incomers provided much-needed income and jobs, a new economic lifeline in difficult times, while at the same time riding roughshod over the last remnants of the traditional farming economy to suit their own interests - another blow to a way of life that had survived and evolved over countless generations.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“...while the troubles sweeping Europe and southern Britain comprised liberal and radical elements protesting against powerful elites to secure better rights, in Badenoch it was the opposite - a subtle exercise of power by a small but influential outsider elite seeking to sweep aside the long-established rights of the lower orders, whose mere presence disrupted their leisure pursuits. There was, of course, a measure of protest, but the scattered and impoverished nature of local communities rendered them powerless. Land-owners knew well enough which side their bread was buttered on - a trend that became increasingly evident over the next two decades.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“I would start at 6 a.m. on a six mile walk and a piece of dry oat cake was nearly always eaten before we reached the place selected to commence the day's shooting. The spying, stalking,and chasing would continue until dark. When there was a kill, or chase, we would not get back to the huts before ten or twelve at night, worn out, and so hungry as to be ready to eat anything. After attending to the dogs I had to walk home, a distance of two miles [sometimes not getting to bed till 2:00 a.m.], and next morning at 6 a.m. would be off again with a fresh gentleman.”
― William Collie

“One... misconception is the idea that England is now mostly concreted over. Coupled to this is the idea that the onward march of bricks and mortar is the main cause of declining species and habitats. Neither assertion is true. Just 8.8 per cent of England is built on; 73 per cent is farmland, and 10 per cent is forestry. The biggest drivers of biodiversity loss in this country are modern agriculture, forestry and shooting. ...the greatest threat to the countryside comes from within it.”
― Guy Shrubsole, The Lie of the Land: Who Really Cares for the Countryside?

“Grouse moors exist or one purpose only: to maximise the numbers of a particular bird, the red grouse, for weathy men and women to shoot. Theirs is an entirely artificial, intensively managed environment. Moorland heather is extensively burned to encourage the fresh shoots eaten by young grouse. Many grouse moors were drained historically, because it was thought this would improve the otherwise damp conditions for both sheep and game birds. Gamekeepers lace the moors with traps to kill animals that predate on grouse: stoats, weasels, foxes and birds of prey. It's illegal to kill birds of prey, but that doesn't stop it happening: the unlawful persecution of raptors is endemic on Britain's grouse moors. And if you want to own a grouse moor, you have to be rich: even the Spectator says that owning one is 'screamingly' elitist and 'the ultimate trophy asset'.”
― Guy Shrubsole, The Lie of the Land: Who Really Cares for the Countryside?