Stories, Thoughts and Snippets


Self Knowledge 1 Self Knowledge 2 Self Knowledge 3 Self Knowledge 4

"I would never have gotten a start with that attitude."

"Perhaps that is true, but I am not telling you how to advance your career, I am telling you how to prolong your life."

"I'll take it under advisement."

"I want to ask you again. Why do you kill if you do not see life as precious and beautiful enough to be worth protecting by ending another? If you do not believe that by killing, as you do, you are ensuring the beauty of the lives of your people, how can you do it?"

"I don't believe any life is particularly beautiful and glorious, and so I don't feel bad about ending one."

"Why not just end your own then? And let these people who do value life live their lives in an ignorant bliss?"

"Self-preservation and adrenalin mostly."

"I think one day you will be very sad with the life you have chosen. Why did you choose this life?" "I had a bad relationship with a musician back when I was in school, and the CIA recruiters happened to show up right after he burned me for some other girl."

"I think that is a very poor reason."

"It's not the reason, it was just the little nudge I needed to make me realize what I wanted to do."

"So Mr. Ar-Zaqwi would still be alive today if your lover had not abandoned you?"

"No, but it seems most likely the CIA would have sent someone other than me to do the job."

"You seem very cold to me, to cold for so young and pretty a woman, Miss Anders."

"And you seem like a very dissuasive person for the CIA to send first time hitters to stay with, why do you do this if you find it so distasteful?"

"I find it necessary. I regret every life that I have a part in taking, but I believe that by doing so I am working to make the world a better place."

"You know something, Jibril, I am betting that on our respective death beds, that it is you who regrets the life they have chosen most. If you won't admit it yet you will have to eventually, there is no government that is so uncompromisingly good that supporting it is worth destroying something that you value so much as you claim to value life."

"Perhaps, Miss Anders. Will you be ok if I leave you tonight. I have plans with my wife."

"Go ahead, I'll be fine."

"Very well, rest this evening, and consider what I have said to you this evening. I will send my son in the morning to take you on a tour of our great Mosques, though as you know, you will not be able to enter them. And please help yourself to anything in the kitchen for breakfast, I regret that I will not be present to prepare the meal for you."

"I think I can handle it. Will I see you again before I leave?"

"I'll check in on you to ensure your well-being."

"Maybe we can continue our conversation then?"

"If you like."

"Good afternoon, Jibril. My regards to your wife."

"Unfortunately my wife will not learn of your existence."

"Well, just good afternoon then."

"Good afternoon."

One of the great views of this world is across the rooftops of a city, the older the more ornate, the better. This was a particularly good one, squat, tan buildings of no more than three stories that looked like they may just as well have been carved from the sandstone of this place as been constructed, provided an expansive sea of, from which an occasional dome or tower could rise impressively. Across the city, buildings were catching that last few rays of the sun, looking as though they intended to store the heat for a slow release throughout the evening.


Self Knowledge 1 Self Knowledge 2 Self Knowledge 3 Self Knowledge 4