Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way. - James Clavell

The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world — and the most dangerous.

My captain will help you be very quick. Within three sticks.” The unit of time was the time it took for a standard stick of incense to smolder away, approximately one hour for one stick.

Changi changed everyone, changed values permanently. For instance, it gave you a dullness about death — we saw too much of it to have the same sort of meaning to outsiders, to normal people. We are a generation of dinosaurs, we the few who survived. I suppose anyone who goes to war, any war, sees life with different eyes if they end up in one piece. What did you see? A lot of bull that's worshipped as the be-all and end-all of existence. So much of 'normal, civilized' life is bull that you can't imagine. … What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at.