Quotes from Daniel Silva

To Pakistan? Or Afghanistan? Or Wherever-the-fuck-istan?

Jews don't camp...The last time the Jews went camping, they spent forty years wandering in the desert.

The secrets of survivors are not easily surrendered. They are locked away behind barricaded doors and accessed at great risk to those who possess them.

Only a man with a damaged canvas of his own can truly be a great restorer.

We did what we always do. We closed ranks, burned our files, and waited for the storm to pass.

If you live to seek revenge, dig a grave for two. ANCIENT JEWISH PROVERB

But that's the beauty of American cable news, darling. It doesn't have to be credible. It just has to be entertaining.

On Yom Kippur, it is not enough for one to feel sorry for the foul deeds one has done. To achieve forgiveness, one must go to the injured parties and make amends.

In the online age, it was more important to live out loud than to live with dignity.

Like many Vatican pronouncements, the official version of events would bear little resemblance to the truth.

When you're dealing with Switzerland, Mr. Allon, it's best to keep one thing in mind. Switzerland is not a real country. It's a business, and it's run like a business. It's a business that is constantly in a defensive posture. It's been that way for seven hundred years.

The best way to win at a game of chance is to remove chance from the equation.

Don't look back. You are never completely alone.

To be honest with you, I've always felt a little Jewish." "You have an aversion to shellfish and German opera?" "I was speaking in a spiritual sense." "You're a professional assassin, Keller.

I suppose I needed to share it with her. I suppose I needed someone to forgive me.

The Germans are fond of saying that only Austria could convince the world that Beethoven was an Austrian and Hitler was a German.

patriotism. During his lifetime of study he had concluded it was the most destructive force on the planet.

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Send men that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel; of every tribe of their fathers shall you send a man, every one a prince among them." —Numbers 13:1-2

He looked older, harder, perhaps wiser. The Middle East was like that. It turned hope to despair, idealists into Machiavellians.

But I've come to realize that this continent is dying a slow death. Europe is receding quietly into history. It's old and tired, and its young are so pessimistic about the prospects of the future they refuse to have enough children to ensure their own survival. They believe in nothing but their thirty-five-hour workweek and their August vacation.

We all leave behind bits of loose thread. Old operations, old enemies. They pull at you, like memories of old lovers.

To understand Russia today, you must understand the trauma of the nineties. Everything we had, everything we had been told, was swept away. We went from superpower to basket case overnight.

The further we are from the last disaster, the closer we are to the next.

We are tempted to think that we have reached the end of history, that it can never happen again. But history is made every day, sometimes by men of evil. And all too often, history repeats itself. (Holy Father, the Pope)