Khris

“Then listen,” said Scheherazade. “I am determined to stop this barbarous practice of the Sultan’s, and to deliver the girls and mothers from the awful fate that hangs over them.” “It would be an excellent thing to do,” returned the grand-vizir, “but how do you propose to accomplish it?” “My father,” answered Scheherazade, “it is you who have to provide the Sultan daily with a fresh wife, and I implore you, by all the affection you bear me, to allow the honour to fall upon me.”
― Andrew Lang, The Arabian Nights

“SMERSH has what I understand is called, in criminal parlance, a hit list. That list includes a number of names – people who are wanted, not dead, but alive. Can you imagine whose name is number one on the chart, James Bond?’ Bond did not have to guess. SMERSH had undergone many changes, but as a Department of the Russian Service, SMERSH had a very long memory.”
― John Gardner, Icebreaker: A James Bond thriller

“James Bond could hardly believe it. A KGB man was actually inviting him into the spider’s web, under the pretext of witnessing the theft of a large quantity of arms.”
― John Gardner, Icebreaker: A James Bond thriller

“He remained silent, wishing to draw her out. The trick was as old as the trade itself, practised constantly by case officers and agent handlers the world over. Remain silent and let them come to you, tell you all there is to tell. Only then should you try to fill in the gaps.”
― John Gardner, Role of Honour: A James Bond thriller