Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1)

by William Gibson

She’d thought of that as going with the flow, but maybe, she thinks now, it had really been the path of least resistance. What if that flow naturally tended to the path of least resistance? Where does that take you? “Down the tube,” she says aloud, causing a very good-looking young Asian man, walking parallel with her, to start, and look at her with brief alarm. She smiles in reassurance, but he frowns and walks faster. She slows, to let him get ahead.

“No. He left because I no longer wanted to be in partnership with him.” “You didn’t? I mean, you don’t?” “No.” “Why?” “Because he pretends to be better at what he does than he is. I prefer people who are better at what they do than they think they are.”