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“Obscurity is Japan's outermost defense. The country doesn't want to be understood.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

“What Is Trust? There are many different models and definitions of trust in the published literature. However, the focus of this book is to learn to build and maintain trust in the workplace. For this purpose, trust is defined as choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions. When you trust someone, what you make vulnerable can range from concrete things such as money, a job, a promotion, or a particular goal, to less tangible things like a belief you hold, a cherished way of doing things, your “good name,” or even your sense of happiness and well being. Whatever you choose to make vulnerable to the other’s actions, you do so because you believe their actions will support it or, at the very least, will not harm it. Some people tend to extend trust to others easily and with little or no evidence it is warranted. They only withdraw their trust it if is betrayed. Others believe that people must earn their trust by demonstrating trustworthiness. Whether you tend to extend trust more or less easily, you do so by assessing the probability that the other person will support or harm what you value in the future. In this sense choosing to trust or distrust is a risk assessment.”
― Charles Feltman, The Thin Book of Trust; An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work

“The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish.”
― Terry Southern

“HE: History has no smell.
ME: Is that why we are nostalgic for it?
HE: Breathe in, breathe out. The past doesn’t stink like the present.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries