David Ignatius > Quotes

“It is never too late to apply good sense as a corrective to stupidity.”
― David Ignatius, Bloodmoney

“Retrospective analysis is not a useful guide to current problems.”
― David Ignatius, Bloodmoney

“Never settle for the lesser ambition. The job, the title, the conventional loyalties and rewards. Stay focused on the larger ambition, which is making a difference in the world.”
― David Ignatius, The Quantum Spy

“Three Rules for When You Are Under Fire: 1) Always have a plan for what to do if something bad happens.”
― David Ignatius, The Director

“If you are one in a million in China, you’re one of 1,300 people.”
― David Ignatius, The Quantum Spy

“Misdirection. False signals. Spreading confusion. This is the Tao of deception.”
― David Ignatius, The Quantum Spy

“Always be the first to move; don’t wait until the”
― David Ignatius, The Director

“Three rules for when you are under fire:
1) Always have a plan for what to do if something bad happens.
2) Always be the first to move; don't wait until the situation is clear, because by then it may be too late.
3) Keep moving until you find cover or your out of the fire zone.”
― David Ignatius, The Director

“We are the sum of our choices and decisions, chances and accidents. Our personal history is built up in layers that contain our history as surely as sediments of rock contain the history of our planet.”
― David Ignatius, A Firing Offense

“Interrogate them,” said Ferris. “Send them to Gitmo. Send them to Hani. Whatever.” “Well, sure, interrogation,” said Hoffman. “That helps. But that’s not the real pop. Even if the guy we capture doesn’t say shit, the bad guys have to assume he has blabbed. So they’ll have to change their cell-phone numbers, and their Internet”
― David Ignatius, Body of Lies

“Finding a needle in a haystack was not as hard as it sounded, if you had a thread tied to the needle.”
― David Ignatius, Bloodmoney

“Showing emotion was bad. Unless it was fake, then it was okay.”
― David Ignatius, The Quantum Spy

“admonition: “Fear your enemy once, fear your friend a thousand times.”
― David Ignatius, Agents of Innocence

“Real power around the world does not reside with governments any longer, but with private interests. Real power is secret power.”
― David Ignatius, A Firing Offense

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
― David Ignatius, Bloodmoney

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
― David Ignatius, The Paladin

“situation is clear, because by then it may be too late. 3) Keep moving until you find cover or you’re out of the fire zone.”
― David Ignatius, The Director

“Awal zaan resto jahan. First yourself, then the universe.”
― David Ignatius, Bloodmoney

“To the west, upriver, was the compact epicenter of national government: Congress, the civilian agencies, the White House, the monuments and museums, all arranged symmetrically as if the federal establishment were a formal garden. The president was weak, it was universally believed; the Congress was enfeebled by partisan divisions; it was as if the balance wheel had broken and the real work of the government had stopped, but the garden remained immaculate.”
― David Ignatius, The Director

“Serdukov looked at the coast, assaulted by waves, rocks becoming sand.”
― David Ignatius, The Director

“It was about how empires try to save themselves in their declining years.” “How timely,” said Stone. “And how did the Ottomans try to save themselves, if I may ask?” “By keeping their subjects at each other’s throats. The Ottomans were masters at sowing dissension. It was one of the few things they were good at, actually.”
― David Ignatius, Siro

“General Wu was about to say something and then thought better of it. Li walked him down the stairs to his car. As the door opened, Li leaned over and whispered in the general’s ear: “I tolerate much from my brother. We are a family. Please don’t ever do that again.”
― David Ignatius, The Quantum Spy

“Supra et ultra. That was the NRO slogan. Above and beyond.”
― David Ignatius, Phantom Orbit: A Thriller

“son”
― David Ignatius, Phantom Orbit: A Thriller

“The easiest thing to do with a defector was to say no: Nobody in the agency ever got blamed for being too careful.”
― David Ignatius

“I’m not authorizing anything that would require my authorization,” said Hoffman. “Got that?” Rogers said yes. “If that’s understood, then you have my authorization”
― David Ignatius, Agents of Innocence

“the research? “So many people, I did not know them all. They studied my work. They asked me questions. I told the ISI about it when I got home. A major like you, he was. You can check.” The major did not want to make more work for himself. And it was true, the story as it had been narrated and understood was all in the files. “Why did you go back to America?” he demanded, looking at a sheet of paper. “I was invited to present a paper at a conference that was cosponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It was a great honor for me, and for my university. You can ask them.” He held out his cell phone again, so that Major Nadeem could make a call to verify, but the major shook his head. They spent several more hours like this, going through the major episodes of Dr. Omar’s career. When they came to his most recent work on computer-security algorithms, Dr. Omar apologized that he could not talk about this work in any detail because it had been classified as “top secret” by the Pakistani military. The major found nothing of interest. Dr. Omar was very careful, then and always. The major asked him to sign a paper, and to report any suspicious contacts, and Dr. Omar assured him that he would. The Pakistani authorities never came after him again. That was three years before his world went white.   Omar al-Wazir had multiple binary identities, it could be said. He was a Pakistani but also, in some sense, a man tied to the West. He was a Pashtun from the raw tribal area of South Waziristan, but he was also a modern man. He was a secular scientist and also a Muslim, if not quite a believer. His loyalties might indeed have been confused before the events of nearly two years ago, but not now. Sometimes Dr. Omar grounded himself by recalling the spirit of his father, Haji Mohammed. He remembered the old man shaking his head when Omar took wobbly practice shots with an Enfield rifle, missing the target nearly every time. The look on the father’s face asked: How can this be my oldest son, this boy who cannot shoot? But Haji Mohammed had taught him the code of manhood, just the same. Omar had learned the”
― David Ignatius, Bloodmoney

“So this is what it feels like. This helpless feeling, this is love.”
― David Ignatius, Body of Lies

“is”
― David Ignatius, The Paladin

“He liked to collect rocks. That day, he had gathered one from near the path down Longevity Hill toward the water. It was a fine-grained piece of granite that he found under a mulberry tree. He took it from his pocket now and, as was his practice, he inscribed the time and place he had found it, in tiny characters, on the rock. He would add it to his collection, hundreds of stones neatly aligned on his shelves at home, so that he could remember”
― David Ignatius, The Quantum Spy