Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1)

by Jason Pargin

Figure out who you can trust, and let them do the work for you.

Well, a lot of nice people are nice because they’ve figured out it’s a great way to get things from other people.

“What is it with rich people thinking they can starve the poor into good behavior?”

clean conscience is expensive, it’s the reason most men have to live paycheck to paycheck.”

“Better to be looked over than overlooked.

In the real world, bullets that miss their targets keep traveling until they hit something.

Guns always represent a failure of negotiation.”

“Torture is useful for when you don’t particularly care about the quality of the information you’re getting, but that’s about it.

We can’t look like we have a plan here, the more vulnerable you look, the more receptive the other person is to what you have to say.

Remember, the most powerful impression a person can make is that they don’t care if they make an impression.

If you’d been raised in an exclusive prep school with private tutors and high-achiever friends, you’d be something different.

Work looks like magic to those unwilling to do it.”

You want to be a hero? You don’t have to make some grand decision. There’s no inspirational music, there’s no montage. You just don’t quit.”

“Always assume your enemies are more clever than you give them credit for—even an animal can think several steps ahead.

But it all starts with this one fundamental principle: find out what the enemy is most afraid of, and you’ll also find what they’re the most eager to believe.”

don’t care who you are, trace your paycheck back far enough and you find it’s all dirty money.

“You can’t focus on death, or failure. Otherwise you’re surrendering greatness to all the people too dumb to contemplate it.”

That’s what it’s like being poor—choices are something you sit around and dream about having, some day after you strike it rich.