Russian Roulette

All that sadness. All that anger. It is the smoke that gets into your eyes. If you do not blow it away, how can you hope to see?

Looking back now, I would say that this was one of the first valuable lessons I learned, and one that would be useful in my future line of work. Sometimes things go wrong. It is inevitable. But it is a mistake to waste time and energy worrying about events that you cannot influence. Once they have happened, let them go.

We all make choices, Cossack. Who we are in this world, what we do in it. Generous or selfish. Happy or sad. Good or evil. It's all down to choice.

You must control your emotions. You must control your feelings. If there is any fear or insecurity, you must destroy it before it destroys you. It is not the size or the strength of your opponent that matters. These can be measured. It is what cannot be measured...courage, determination...that count.

When your business is death, the only death you should never consider is your own.

As Leo had said to me, none of us knew what our crime was, but reading the book was certainly a punishment. The

The computer, however, had been authorized to receive the message, and Yassen saw three words. KILL ALEX RIDER They were exactly what he had expected.

the covers, I tried to persuade myself that everything would be all right. It was the beginning of the longest night of my life. I took off my outer clothes and lay down on the second bunk but I couldn’t sleep. I was frightened that the fire would go out. I was

by huge, solid trunks with the sky blotted out

We used our imagination to create a world of wolves and vampires, ghosts and Cossack warriors—and we chased each other right through the middle of them.

In a way, I think I am writing this for Leo. I have decided to keep a record of my life because I suspect my life will be short. I do not particularly want to be remembered. After all, being unknown has been essential to my work. But I sometimes think of him and I would like him to understand what it was that made me what I am.