Quotes from Barry Eisler

I smiled into her green eyes. The smile felt strangely sad to me. Maybe she didn't notice.

Harry had told me his boss had taken him to Damask Rose to "celebrate" the night Harry had met Yukiko. If the girl had been a setup, Harry's boss must have been complicit. I chewed on that. I thought about going to the guy. I could find out his name, where he lived, brace him one morning on his way to the office.

I love single malts. Especially the old Islay whiskies. They say age removes the fire but leaves the warmth. I like that." You

You have to remember, the history the powers-that-be feed you always excludes what they managed to bury. Or whom.

Now, you listen to me. First of all, there is no normal. Anyone trying to sell you on normal is also trying to sell you on abnormal, and that's a load of shit. Just a bunch of boring people trying to make exceptional people as boring as they are.

What makes me a hard target is that I have no fixed points in my life—no workplace, no address, no known associates—that someone can hook into and use to get to me. If someone had established a connection from Harry to me, he'd have that fixed point. He could be expected to exploit it.

there are no bad guys, any more than there are good guys. There are only smart people, and stupid ones; puppets, and puppet masters

The waitress came and put the drinks on the table. Murakami drained his in a single draught. Yukiko followed suit. "Ii yo," Murakami growled. Good. Yukiko set her glass down with practiced delicacy. Murakami looked at her. She returned the look, something almost theatrically nonchalant in her expression. The look went on for a long moment. Then he grinned and grabbed her hand.

Did he not understand she would recognize the framing? They were taught as recruits never to threaten openly. Instead, they were taught to pose as the target's protector and ally. Even if the target understands the subterfuge, the training went, he'll still feel respected that you offered a fig leaf rather than a naked display of your power over him. And then she realized: Of course he understands.

Everywhere were metastasizing telephone lines, riots of electric wires, laundry hanging from prefabricated apartment windows like tears from idiot eyes.

She laughed. "Good. You still haven't told me what you were afraid of." I thought for a moment. Drowsiness was settling on me like a blanket. "Of getting involved. Like you said, I haven't been with someone for a long time.

covering for someone coming in from

The mindfulness he spoke of was called nen in Japanese—an acknowledgment, an appreciation, of the importance of small things. The things that make living more worthwhile. And that, in my work, make it more probable, as well.

In the dim light her eyes looked more gray than blue. I liked the way the lighting softened her features, the way it rendered her eyes, even her smile, alluringly ambiguous.

It was a symbiotic division of labor that would have made a classical economist flush with pride.

I looked at her. Why was it her question seemed suffused with double entendre? She was attractive, of course, more than attractive, but that wasn't all of it. She had a way of looking at me with a sort of confident sexual appreciation, that was it. As though she was seeing me just the way I might hope a desirable woman would see me. And she made it seem so natural, so real. I would have to be careful.

But, like all indulgences that are valued not just for their product but for their process, the sento will never entirely disappear. For in the unhurried rituals of scrubbing and soaking, and in the perspective of profound relaxation that can only be derived from immersion in water the meek might describe as scalding, there are qualities of devotion, and celebration, and meditation, qualities that are necessary concomitants to a life worth living.

I considered. As Tatsu noted, if word got out, the efficacy of the camera network would be compromised. But there was more.

God knew the scooters and shooters needed solid intel to figure out who to blame and where to aim

Why didn't you just come to my apartment?" He smiled. "Where you live is always where you are most vulnerable because it represents a possible choke point for an ambush. And I would not wish to surprise a man like you where he felt most vulnerable. Safer, I judged, to approach you on neutral ground, where you might even see me coming, ne?

Americans, whose self-image is so tied up with fairness, wind up making themselves suckers for the concept.

I unlocked the door to the room and we went inside. "Sorry about the procedures," I said, removing the earpiece. I turned off the phone and left it by the door. The apology was perfunctory. So was the shrug she offered in response. I bolted the door behind us.

She wondered what it was about men that wed them more to a way of doing things than to achieving their ostensible goals.

People like to say the West is a guilt-based culture, while that of Japan is based on shame, with the chief distinction being that the former is an internalized emotion while the latter depends on the presence of a group.