The point is we both know life and understand death — and both believe treatment in hell and everywhere else depends on money. - James Clavell

an able man has many burdens. As I’m abler than most I have to sweat more than most.

He remembered the pride-filled glow that had swamped Gyoko's face and he wondered again at the bewildering gullibility of people. How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces and they were on their knees slitting their bellies or cutting their throats, or cast out into the freezing world, they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals — anything or anything — but never themselves.

Didn’t JFK give Khrushchev a written promise not to invade Cuba, not to permit an invasion from American territory — or from any other place in the Western Hemisphere? Written, by God! So now, a hostile European power, Soviet Russia, totally against your Monroe Doctrine, is openly established ninety miles off your coast, the borders of which are guaranteed in writing by your own President and ratified by your own Congress. The Big K pulled off a colossal coup never duplicated in your whole history. And all for nothing!