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41 " a question that has occupied the minds of great philosophers since time immemorial. How come unattractive guys nearly always get the hot women? "
― Terry Hayes , I Am Pilgrim
42 " They fill the bottom with nuts and whatever else monkeys like to eat. In the night, a monkey climbs out of the trees and slips his hand down the long neck. He grabs the sweets and his hand makes a fist. That means it’s too big to get back up the narrow neck and he’s trapped. In the morning the villagers come around and hit him on the head.” He looked at me for a moment. “It’s a Zen story, of course,” he said, smiling again. “The point is—if you want to be free, all you have to do is let go. "
43 " Heavily armed men in uniform were everywhere, but there was nothing you could call genuine security: as usual, too many guns, not enough intelligence. "
44 " every life leaves a trace, every ship a wake, and even though it was often just a glimmer of phosphorescence in the dark, "
45 " They say that when men are dying in battle their fingers nearly always twist into the soil, trying to hold on to the earth and all the pain and love it holds. The "
46 " As a Swiss writer once said, “We wanted a labor force but human beings came,” and what nobody had foreseen was that those workers would bring their mosques, their holy book, and huge swathes of their culture with them. "
47 " If Only--but it has been my unfortunate experience that you can't rely on divine intervention and that fate favors the bad as often as the good. "
48 " Within hours, large crowds were streaming into the car park and by the time a twelve-year-old boy—the Saracen’s best friend—drove past with his father he knew exactly what it meant. It was a Friday—the Muslim day of rest—and the traffic was terrible, so it took the kid over an hour to get home. He immediately grabbed his bicycle and rode eight miles to tell his friend what he had seen. "
49 " the complex of seven luxurious homes, swimming pools and lavish stables was surrounded by a twelve-foot wall patrolled by what we believed to be Albanians armed with Skorpion machine pistols. This was strange, given that the family was in the wholesale floristry business. Maybe flower theft was a bigger problem in northern Greece than most people realized. "
50 " I've always been pretty much on the outside of any side you can find. "
51 " If you take the bomb out of it, August 6th was probably a nice day in Hiroshima. "
52 " yet again that the quietest man in the room is usually the most dangerous. "
53 " things that cross all racial, religious, and cultural boundaries—poor "
54 " I’ve heard bombs going off in our embassies, mobs screaming for blood, mullahs issuing death decrees, so-called leaders yelling for jihad. They’ve been burning books, Dave—the temperature of hate in parts of the Islamic world has gone out to Pluto. And I’ve been listening to them.” “And you don’t think we have—the people in Washington?” He said it without anger. I was at one time a leading intelligence agent and I think he genuinely wanted to know. “Maybe in your heads. Not in your gut.” He turned and looked out the window. It was starting to rain. He was quiet for a long time and I began to wonder if his blood pressure had taken off again. “I think you’re right,” he said at last. “I think, like the Jews, we believed in the fundamental goodness of men; we never thought it could really happen. "
55 " Several guards and retainers exchanged a glance – Gaza was not somewhere to be taken lightly; it was probably the only place in the world that made Afghanistan look safe. "
56 " PSM 5.45, "
57 " compassion is the purest form of love because it neither expects nor demands anything in return. "
58 " Like people say—if you want to make God laugh, tell him you’ve got plans. With "
59 " would have seen a man with empty eye sockets, "
60 " Somehow, she and the physicians rolled the stone back from the cave and eventually he was released to the high-dependency unit. "