Barry Eisler Quote

I had been watching the yakuza for over a month now, and knew his routines. I’d learned that he liked to vary the times of his workouts, sometimes arriving at the gym early in the morning, sometimes at night. Probably he assumed the resulting unpredictability would make him hard to get to. He was half right. Unpredictability is the key to being a hard target, but the concept applies to both time and place. Half measures like this guy’s will protect you from some of the people some of the time, but they won’t save you for long from someone like me.

Barry Eisler

I had been watching the yakuza for over a month now, and knew his routines. I’d learned that he liked to vary the times of his workouts, sometimes arriving at the gym early in the morning, sometimes at night. Probably he assumed the resulting unpredictability would make him hard to get to. He was half right. Unpredictability is the key to being a hard target, but the concept applies to both time and place. Half measures like this guy’s will protect you from some of the people some of the time, but they won’t save you for long from someone like me.

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About Barry Eisler

Barry Mark Eisler (born 1964) is an American novelist. He is the author of three thriller series, the first featuring anti-hero John Rain, a half-Japanese, half-American former soldier turned freelance assassin, a second featuring black ops soldier Ben Treven, and his most recent centered on Seattle detective Livia Lone. Eisler also writes about politics and language on his blog Heart of the Matter, and at the blogs CHUD, Firedoglake, The Huffington Post, MichaelMoore.com, The Smirking Chimp, and Truthout.