“I wasn't sure about that, but one never knows. Sometimes a neighborhood, like a culture or civilization, is strong enough to absorb and acculturate any number of newcomers. But I don't know if that's true around here any longer. The outward forms and appearances look the same - [...]- but the substance has been altered.”

“Kate had never been married, so she had no way of knowing if I was a normal husband. This has been good for our marriage.”

“I tried to picture a bunch of guys in blue suits running around a beachside neighborhood, knocking on doors and flashing Fed creds. That should cause a stampede of illegal aliens heading south.”

“Most guys arrived here normal, and they were shocked and sickened by the behavior of the guys who'd been here a while. Then within a few weeks, they'd stop being shocked, and within a few months a lot of them joined the club of the crazies. And most of them, I think, went home and became normal again, though some didn't. But I never once saw anyone here who had gone around the bend ever return to normal while they were still here. It only got worse because in this environment they'd lost any sense of. . . humanity. Or you could be nice and say they'd become desensitized. It was actually more frightening than sickening. A guy who'd sliced off the ear of a VC he'd killed that morning would be joking with the village kids and the old Mama-sans that afternoon and handing out candy. I mean, they weren't evil or psychotic, we were normal, which is was really scared the hell out of me.”

“The meaning of life has not much to do with good and evil, right and wrong, duty, honor, country, or any of that.It has to do with cutting the right deal.”

“The problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you're finished.”

“I turned to the Times crossword puzzle and asked Kate, “What’s the definition of a moderate Arab?” “I don’t know.” “A guy who ran out of ammunition.”