“Confusion to our enemies!”

“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.”

“He remembered the old Chinese proverb, sometimes ascribed to Confucius: If you sit by the river for long enough, the body of your enemy will float by.”

“The enemy for the fanatic is pleasure, which makes it extremely important to continue to indulge in pleasure. Dance madly. That is how you get rid of terrorism.”

“What happens when you win?When your enemies are at your mercy: how will you act then? Compromise is the temptation of the weak; this is the test for the strong.”

“Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another's, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.”

“Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence.”