Quotes from Barry Eisler

Call it assassination feng shui: the vibe was just more favorable

conflagration

I was surprised at how much the genuine clothes made me feel like a monk. I would remember that—that the details mattered, not just in how you looked, but in how you felt, in the kind of unconscious vibe you emanated and that people might key on one way or the other.

rubbing his chin, "as Nicolas Cage put it in Con Air, 'On any other day, that might seem strange.

If there was one thing Snake knew about people, it was that once they got attached to a theory, it was hard to get them detached. They'd screen out unhelpful facts, invent favorable ones, and ignore contradictions in their own claims. Look at those Sandy Hook truthers, babbling about false flags and crisis actors and all the rest. When people were motivated enough to believe something, they were going to believe it no matter what.

She's a bargirl. You don't know where her loyalties lie. That one was unconvincing. No one had directed her against me—I was the one who had been pursuing her. She hadn't needed to warn me about the bugs. My gut told me she wasn't dissembling.

Music reveals a personal past of which, until then, each of us was unaware, moving us to lament misfortunes we never suffered and wrongs we did not commit. —Jorge Luis Borges

The second guy moved the gun, trying to track me, the movements overlarge and shaking. Then, maybe because he saw the cool bead I was drawing on him, his nerve broke. He started shooting in a spray-and-pray pattern, his eyes closed, his body hunching forward involuntarily. Pffft. Pffft. Pffft. Small clouds of dust kicked up along the concrete around me, puffing out lazily in my adrenalized slow-motion vision. I heard the sounds of ricochets. Someone screamed.

When I'd killed Ozawa at the sent?, I'd briefly wondered whether I was now one of the bad guys. By the time I did McGraw, I'd figured out there are no bad guys, any more than there are good guys. There are only smart people, and stupid ones; puppets, and puppet masters. Better a wise r?nin, I decided, than a naïve samurai.

But denial . . . well, you know what they say about denial." Ben nodded, seeing where this was going now, not wanting to show what he really thought of it. "It has no survival value.

Sun Tsu: When strong, feign weakness. When weak, feign strength.

I shifted my head slightly. The corners of our mouths brushed together. I felt her breath on my cheek. Then we were kissing. Her mouth was warm and soft. Our tongues entwined and simultaneously I thought Oh, you fucking idiot and Oh, that feels so good.

I squeezed her hips, then ran my hands up and over the curve of her ribs to her breasts. Her nipples were hard under the wet fabric of her dress. Her body radiated heat. I heard myself groan. It sounded like capitulation.

Knight's Armament SR-25, integral suppressor, twenty-round magazine, and oooh, the Leupold Mark 4 HAMR. Haven't played with one of these before. Gonna

It's hard for the most primal, powerful regions of the mind to abandon habits that were once crucial to the organism's survival, even when the higher mind recognizes those habits are no longer warranted.

The Nigerians were gauntleting the entranceway. They bowed obsequiously low for Murakami and breathed "Irasshaimase" in unison. The one on the right spoke into his lapel mike. We walked down the steps. The ruddy-faced man I had seen there last time looked up. He saw Murakami and swallowed.

I wish I'd told her I loved her. It bothers me that I didn't. I'd been so close, and then I'd held back. I tell myself it would have made no difference, and I believe that's true. But at least then she would have known.

no patience for anyone who enjoys meat but moans about slaughterhouses, who wears cheap clothes but deplores sweatshops, who weeps about climate change from behind the wheel of an SUV or from the window seat of an airplane.

I watched her, a tall girl with long hair so black that under the stage lighting it coruscated like moonlit liquid. It cascaded in waves around the smooth contours of her shoulders, past the alluring shadows of her waist, around the upturned curve of her ass. She was tall and fine-boned, with delicate white skin, high cheekbones, and small, high breasts. Put the hair up, add a little couture, and you'd have the world's classiest courtesan.

naïve. The triumph of hope over experience.

familiar with. "HK MK23 SOCOM, Knights Armament suppressor. One each.

You don't just childproof your guns," was how he put it. "You also gun-proof your child.

I might have asked for her number. I could have told her my visit had been extended, something like that. She was too young, but I liked the way she made me feel. She provoked a confusing mix of emotions: affinity based on the shared experiences of mixed blood and childhood bereavement; a paternalistic urge to protect her from the mistakes she was going to make; a sad sexual longing that was like an elegy for Midori.

Why did bad things, things she had no control over, make her unable to enjoy good things?