The Diamond Eye

by Kate Quinn

My memoir, the official version: Rank conveys privileges. My memoir, the unofficial version: Being known as someone who can put a bullet through a target’s eye at five hundred meters also conveys privileges.

My memoir, the unofficial version: Snipers must make themselves calm in order to succeed, and that is why women are good at sharpshooting. Because there is not a woman alive who has not learned how to eat rage in order to appear calm.

“I reminded myself that you must do the thing you think you cannot do,” she said simply. “Always. And generally you find out you can do it, after all.”