Nancy Ellis

“...this is hard to explain, but it's not a government operation, the Kennedy thing [assassination]. I've been in government my whole life, and I've seen a lot of slimy deals go down, and the one characteristic they all have is stupidity and simplicity; once you pick at them, they start to unravel. People rat each other out. They leave evidence lying around. They buy yachts they can't afford. And let's face it, you want to start a conspiracy in the government, who've you got to do the job? Guys who signed up to work at a desk eight hours a day for thirty years, with no chance of layoffs and a nice pension at the end. Not your top recruits for skullduggery, right? Prime example: Watergate. Now that's a government conspiracy.”
― Robert K. Tanenbaum

“I did not trust the era I lived in, nor did I want to live in it. The twentieth century had been the most violent in human history. The amount of killing had no precedent, and I had the feeling it was about to get started again, and once more by those who had never gone to war but gloated over the graves they spread through a neocolonial world. If I had to go to war again, I'd like to do it against those bastards.”
― James Lee Burke, Clete

“So in your world everyone lies, and everyone's corrupt?"

"It is called the diplomatic service.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Fury: The Battle of Barrosa, March 1811

“Faith is groping at air during the fall, hoping to find something to grab on to.”
― Timothy Egan, A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith