Scott C. Johnson > Quotes

“Apparently, we flew. We were lifted high, flung about like a tetherball; five tons of metal and steel, and another half-ton of human flesh, lifted up more than a yard—60 inches high—to the height of my throat; lifted as if by God’s hand, shot up from underneath, or within, a pop of the weasel, straight into the palm of the Lord.”
― Scott C. Johnson, The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA

“We could see the impact of an explosion long before the boom, so a hill out there on the horizon, maybe a mile or two away, suddenly disappeared in a raft of dust, and moments later we felt in our skulls the shattering crack arriving from across the desert. I wondered if whole towns were being obliterated.”
― Scott C. Johnson, The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA

“But despite the ease, theirs was also a world of intrigue and secrets, in which wit and flashy derring-do were rewarded. In such circles, people began to call my father Silver Tongue, and so my mother did, too, smiling and teasing him about his ease with people and his facility with words, all the while feeling intimidated by those things herself.”
― Scott C. Johnson, The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA

“What [my father] didn’t say, but what was understood, was that he needed me to lie for him from then on, and lie like a professional. I had license to dissimulate, fabricate, invent, cover-up, and deceive if necessary. There was a greater good.”
― Scott C. Johnson, The Wolf and the Watchman: A Father, a Son, and the CIA