“Not all divers succumb to panic as Drozd did. A great diver learns to stand down his emotions. A the moment he becomes lost or blinded or tangled or trapped, that instant when millions of years of evolution demand fight or flight and narcosis carves order from his brain, he dials down his fear and c…”— Robert Kurson, amazon.com
“I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you practice.”— Dashiell Hammett, amazon.com
“I distrust a man that says 'when.' If he's got to be careful not to drink too much it's because he's not trusted when he does.”— Dashiell Hammett, amazon.com
“I do like a man that tells you right out he's looking out for himself. Don't we all? I don't trust a man that says he's nit. And the man that's telling the truth when he says he's not I distrust most of all, because he's an ass and ass that's going contrary to the laws of nature.”— Dashiell Hammett, amazon.com
“When trouble does not ensue immediately for bad people after any given crime, but comes later, they classify it as a piece of bad luck...”— Plutarch, Euripides, amazon.com
“Don't be alarmed: justice won't come up to you or any other unjust person and stab you in the guts. No, it comes with silent and steady trend and grabs criminals when they don't expect it.”— Plutarch, Euripides, amazon.com
“You will regard them as doing what comes naturally to them (as dogs are when they bark).”— Plutarch, amazon.com
“Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You're the second guy I've met within hours who seems to think a gun in the hand means the world by the tail.”— Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, amazon.com
“It's a question of a little money against a lot of annoyance.”— Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, amazon.com
“When they use a .22 it means they don't make mistakes.”— Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, amazon.com
“I didn't say anything. I was way past the age when it's fun to swear at people you can't hurt.”— Raymond Chandler, Philip Marlowe, amazon.com
“As long as there are others who would gladly choose your fate, even including our present state [the death of a child], it is awful of you, the bearer of that fate, to complain and grumble.”— Plutarch, amazon.com
“Quick eyed, ingenious, nervously active in mind and body, sleeplessly alert on every occasion, with a clear idea of what he wanted and an unyielding determination to have it, he made himself and everybody around him uncomfortable till his demands were gratified.”— B.H. Liddell Hart, amazon.com
“Beware of entrance to a quarrel; being in, bear it, that the opposed may beware of thee.”— William Shakespeare, Polonius, amazon.com
“How blind men's minds to their fate and what the future holds, how blind to limits when fortune lifts men high.”— Virgil, amazon.com
“Poverty is a bitter thing but it is not as bitter as restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness.”— Theodore Roosevelt, amazon.com