“Such was the hidden power of nature, capable of producing extreme beauty and cruelty at the same time.”

“Its not going to be easy, but its kind of like ripping off a band-aid. Painful for a minute, but it has to be done.”

“Once you deposit that money in your checking account, it becomes the banks money and youre just another one of their creditors.”

“We had won the war, but when the insurgency reared its ugly head, we lost everything we had gained.”

“War is the most profitable business on earth”

“To the heads of the new Islamic State, their God was money and power on earth.”

“If you agree to work for us, half the time you won't know the purpose of your duties . . . and when we do explain, we might not be telling the truth. But that's the real world, folks . . .”

“There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter a...”

“This is a war," Lemas replied. "It's graphic and unpleasant because it's fought on a tiny scale, at close range; fought with a wastage of innocent life sometimes, I admit. But it's nothing, nothing...”

“If quick, I survive.If not quick, I am lost.This is "death.”

“I wasn't a spy. I'd have been spotted in five seconds. Yes, I was in intelligence, but that covered a multitude of things.”

“Europeans don't like to talk about intelligence, and they often pretend their countries don't spy.”