Quotes from Barry Eisler

Your personality. You know, most people are like sheep. Nice, harmless creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone so they can graze. But then of course there are wolves. Who want nothing more than to eat the sheep.

I would stare at the statue's distant shape, perhaps daring it to do something—strike me down if it wanted, or show some other sign of sentience—and, after an uneventful interregnum, I would turn away, never with satisfaction. The statue seemed to mock me with its muteness and its immobility, as though offering the promise, if of anything, not of redemption, but rather of a reckoning, and at a time of its choosing, not of mine.

A Fed, a local, and a consultant.

We had each spent two years with what Uncle Sam at the time affectionately referred to as the Muj, more recently regarded with less warmth as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and I hadn't seen him, or missed him, since then.

I noted he had no place to conceal a weapon or transmitter. I wondered whether the attire had been chosen deliberately, to reassure me. Dox liked to play the hick, and a lot of people bought the act, but I knew he could be subtle when he wanted to be.

madre de dios. Watching him in profile, she felt a wave

You must think of neither victory nor of defeat, but only of cutting and killing your enemy.

Graham smiled and filled it all the way, then said, "What the hell" and did the same for his own. He took a sip and made an mmmmm sound. "That's a Peruvian varietal, from Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco. I can't get enough of their coffee. I have twenty pounds flown in every month, and it's barely enough for my habit. Say, you're from California, aren't you?

When I had found a payphone in a suitably innocuous location, I inserted a phone card and punched in Tatsu's number. I could have just ignored him, but it was hard to predict what he might do in response to that. Better to know what he wanted, while maintaining the appearance of cooperation.

Tiresias of these two worlds that the distinction is less important than people would have you believe. Guilt is what happens when there isn't a group to shame you. Regret, horror, atrocity—if the group doesn't care, we simply invent a God who does. A God who might be swayed by the subsequent good acts, or at least efforts, of an erstwhile wrongdoer.

client?" "I asked the same question. Hort wouldn't tell me. For your ears only. But if you want to share, I'm a good listener." I said

most people are like sheep. Nice, harmless creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone so they can graze. But then of course there are wolves. Who want nothing more than to eat the sheep." He looked at his soup, then back to her. "But there's a third kind of person. The sheepdog. Sheepdogs have fangs like wolves. But their instinct isn't predation. It's protection. All they want, what they live for, is to protect the flock.

The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat, an army instructor once told me, and I've never forgotten the lesson.

mono no aware

Gradually our surroundings became more residential. We passed wide, open doorways. These I checked automatically, but they offered no danger, only miscellaneous domestic scenes: four elderly women absorbed in a game of mahjong; a group of boys surrounding a television; a family at the supper table. We passed an old shrine, its red paint peeling in the tropical moisture. Incense from the brazier within pervaded my senses with the recollected emotions of childhood.

He called you. You're the one who insists on carrying a phone." The moment it came out, he regretted it. When Delilah was pissed, there was no winning move. Your only option was to try to find a way not to play.

There wasn't any

Murakami liked to fight. Hell, Pride wasn't enough for him. He needed more. And it wasn't the money. Pride, with promotions and pay-per-view, would pay a lot more, to the winners and losers. No. It wasn't the money for this guy. It was the excitement. The proximity to death. The high you can only get from killing a man who's simultaneously doing everything in his power to kill you. I know the sensation. It both fascinates and repulses me.

Why are the most painful memories also the sweetest; why does the sweetness always draw us back no matter how long the pain might have kept us away beforehand?

Boxers wear tape to protect their hands. But you get dependent on the tape, and then you don't know how to hit someone without it. Even Mike Tyson once broke a hand when he hit another fighter barehanded in a late night brawl. In a real fight, if you break your hand, you probably just lost the fight. If you were fighting for your life, you probably just lost that, too.

I was impressed. I had been taking care not to stand out or to otherwise become memorable, and he had spotted me anyway. He was well attuned to his environment, to the patterns that might at some point make the difference between winning and losing. Or living and dying.

My speed and strength were still good. Endurance likewise. Recovery times weren't what they once were, but a steady diet of liquid amino acids for the muscles, glucosamine for the joints, and Cognamine for the reflexes all seemed to help.

What did Ian Fleming say? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. And I don't believe in waiting for even that much evidence. It was past time to act.

The smaller guys can be dangerous. Never having been able to rely on their size for intimidation, they have to learn to fight instead. I know because, before filling out in the army, I had been one of them. The