People in a hurry get noticed.
It hurts to be lost. You go native because it's better to be wrong than to be lost.
Because Rakkim knew the seduction of hiding in plain sight. The singular pleasure of blending into the background, of setting the table in the house of the enemy and watching him eat dinner.
A man can never have too many friends.
Give the agent something easy to reject, something to justify his authority - that way they won't look too closely at the rest of your things.
Time always won the race.
Takes a while for a person to decide what they like best. Some folks never do decide. Always changing their mind, back and forth.
People need symbols, something greater than their own lives.
People believed what made them comfortable. What fit with their preconceptions of how the world worked.
Government isn't about religion or signs or symbols… It's about power and control.
Not like God reads minds or anything.- He better not, or we're all fucked forever.
Whatever works, that's my philosophy. I don't care if it's magic beans or a prayer cloth dipped in the Jordan River.
He had to appreciate a creature that knew what it was doing.
Getting older... mostly it entails accepting the unacceptable.
Without loyalty all the training in the world is useless. Worse than useless.
Studying history is for tourists - polite, tidy people with clean desks and clean consciences. Making history is for people willing to get their hands dirty, to make mistake and lie when necessary, so...