Persuader

I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Nothing ever works like you predict it. All plans fall apart as soon as the first shot is fired.

Ninety percent of asking questions is about listening to answers.

Now you had one come back, Harley.

I don’t really care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.

Revising objectives is smart because it stops you throwing good money after bad.

any structure that has a ranking system tempts you to try to climb it.

What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. He thought JFK had said it. I thought it was actually Friedrich Nietzsche, and he said destroy, not kill. What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger.

I fought to stay awake and keep the car on the road. And I thought back to texts I had read from the British Army in India, during the Raj, at the height of their empire. Young subalterns trapped in junior ranks had their own mess. They would dine together in splendid dress uniforms and talk about their chances of promotion. But they had none, unless a superior officer died. Dead men's shoes was the rule. So they would raise their crystal glasses of fine French wine and toast "bloody wars and dread diseases" because a casualty further up the chain of command was their only way to get ahead. Brutal, but that's how it's always been, in the military.

People who say "no" right away are usually lying. A truthful person is perfectly capable of saying "no" but generally they stop and think about it first. And they add "sorry" or something like that. Maybe they come out with some questions of their own. It's human nature. They say, "Sorry, no, why, what happened?

Being ex-military is like being a lapsed Catholic. Even though they’re way in the back of your mind, the old rituals still exert a powerful pull.

key. I need to move up into Duke’s job. Then I’ll be top boy on Beck’s side. Then I’ll

OK,’ Duffy said. ‘So what have we got?’ We had rugs. The door rattled upward and daylight

fifty feet above the rocks. The wind

bradawl. It was just a blunt steel spike set into a handle.