They put me with a blind monk who taught me how to massage and to see again with my fingers. Now my fingers tell me more than my eyes used to, I think.
I can’t use hope against swords.
Yes. My ship’ll be like her, he promised himself. She’ll be trim and miniature and perfect like a Yoshitomo blade, and that’s the best in the world, and just as dangerous. Next year she’ll take a prize twenty times her own weight, like Mariko did at Osaka, ans she’ll rip the enemy out of Asia.
The Scots knew that the burning of a cross was a summons to the clan, and to all the kinsmen of all kindred clans: a summons to rally to the cross for battle. And the burning cross was raised only by the chief of the clan. By ancient law, once raised, the burning cross committed the clan to defend the land unto the end of the clan.
You don’t know for certain about God until you’re dead.
I send you my laughter. May Buddha bless thee and thine.
It’s good for a man to get drunk once in a while. It releases all the evil spirits.
Money means nothing to a real man.
You should talk to Ian about Cuba, old chap, that really gets him going. He says, and I agree, you lost. The Soviets sucked you into another trap. A fool’s mate. He believes they built their sites almost openly – wanting you to detect them and you did and then there was a lot of saber-rattling, the whole world’s frightened to death, and in exchange for the Soviet agreement to take the missiles out of Cuba your President tore up your Monroe Doctrine, the cornerstone of your whole security system.
Vietnam’s going to be a big problem for your government unless it’s very smart.” Bartlett said confidently, “Thank God it is. JFK handled Cuba. He’ll handle Vietnam too. He made the Big K back off there and he can do it again. We won that time. The Soviets took their missiles out.
As to Vietnam, no one here thinks President Kennedy can handle that either, much as we admire him personally.
Christianity is a religion. Not a political ideology.
A wise man prepares for treachery.
They’re wise in China. There the first of a dynasty’s always a peasant or the son of a peasant, and the throne’s always taken by force with bloody hands. No hereditary caste there – isn’t that China’s strength?
A fine moon rode the sky and he could see the dark marks on its face and he wondered absently if the dark was land and the rest ice and snow, and why the moon was there, and who lived there.
An army of helpers for the twenty-eight cooks were preparing the meats and vegetables, plucking chickens, killing fresh fish and lobsters and crabs and cleaning them, doing the thousand tasks that Chinese food requires – as each dish is cooked freshly for each customer.
They’re devils who pretend to serve the Church and Christ, but they serve only themselves. They lust for power, power at any cost. They hide behind a net of poverty and piousness, but underneath, they feed like kings and amass fortunes.
Their souls touch and I seem to be more aware of God because of it.
Let’s compete freely. Goddam tariffs! Free trade and free seas – that’s what’s right!
You can find friends in manure, sometimes, my son.