We’ve got one huge advantage—people believe what they see in databases. They’ve never learned the most important rule of cyberspace—computers don’t l… - Terry Hayes

The driver thought I was crazy—but then his religion thinks stoning a woman to death for adultery is reasonable, so I figured we were about even.

Apart from opium poppies and hemp plants, kidnappings for ransom had become about the only growth industry in Afghanistan.

I wandered past the stacks of drying wood, thinking about how many great skills the world had lost, how many things of value had passed without any of us even noticing. The old men with their chisels and handsaws would have once been the most highly paid members of their community and what had we put in their place? Financial engineers and young currency traders.