Winner Take All Quotes

“Sometimes, you have to remind yourself the perfect is the enemy of the good.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“I paused before the door and used the SoldierVision to confirm the hallway was clear before opening it.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“Now death was a place, a place to which people disappeared forever when they died, a place that gradually sucked away the clarity of memory afterward for a similar one-way journey.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“Only teasing', Death seemed to be saying over his shoulder with a rictus smile, with good humor and an oddly paternal affection. 'Take care of yourself, okay? We'll play again.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“In my unfortunately infrequent encounters with real passion, I'm rarely as careful as I ought to be. The rationalization goes something like: With all the bullets and mortar rounds I've survived, I must be immune to sexually transmitted diseases. Stupid, I know. More likely, fate will indulge its taste for irony by killing me with AIDS os some other unpleasant alternative.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“Hummers purchased on tax breaks for use on flat asphalt, without even a pothole to challenge them; quarter-mile long buffets vacuumed down by impossibly corpulent diners; retirees addicted to endless hours of daily television and enticed to this place by a craving”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“I realize these marks are signs, artifacts of lives and moments that were but are no longer, like ashes in an empty hearth, or bones cast aside from some long ago supper, or a tattered shape that might have been a scarecrow in a field grown over with weeds. All just physical graffiti, unintentionally scrawled by other solitary travelers, detritus deposited by random men on their way to that common destination, and not just the marks of someone else’s passage, but portents of my own.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“Sacrifice was the duty only of the few, who were of course hypocritically lauded by the many, the latter barely pausing in their infantile partying to wish the soldiers good luck at war.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“in my experience, one of the guiding principles of human relations is “what have you done for me lately”—but it was something, a small antidote against the potential poison of his professional affiliations.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“I heard footsteps on the tile, then saw his profile as he emerged from the bathroom, wearing only a white tee shirt and matching boxer shorts.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the first Gulf war.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“frangible”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“mono no aware,”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“senescent”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“assiduously”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“magnanimity.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“mutatis mutandis,”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“entente.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“cachaça”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“caipirinha,”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“capacious,”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“escarpments”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“I took off my shoes, as well, and followed her into the room. I’d left the lights on low so their reflection against the floor-to-ceiling window glass wouldn’t obscure the view of the harbor and the lights of Hong Kong beyond it, but still she paused to log the room details before appreciating the panorama outside. I couldn’t help smiling at that, although it wasn’t unexpected. A civilian would never have paused before taking in that spectacular scenery.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“Why would I want to do that?” I said, aware my heart had started a little giddyup just at the prospect. “We trust each other, right?” She lowered her arms, letting the smile linger for a moment, maybe acknowledging I’d handled her suggestion about as well as anyone could under the circumstances.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“She raised her arms away from her sides and looked at me. She smiled in that sly, subversive way she had—teasing, but also amused, and inviting the recipient of the smile to join in the amusement. “You’re not going to search me?”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“Feeling secure for the moment, I took in a few more details. She was wearing a midnight blue dress, something with texture, maybe raw silk. It was cut just above the knee, with three-quarter length sleeves, an off-the-shoulder neckline, and a deep V cut in the back and front. Her shoes were patent leather stilettos with sharp toes. There was a handbag to match the shoes, and a gold Cartier watch with a gold link band encircling her left wrist. It was a man’s watch, large and heavy on her wrist, and its incongruous heft served to accentuate her femininity. Her hair was swept back and away from her face in a way that accentuated her profile. Overall the look was controlled and sleek, sophisticated and sexy. None of it, especially the shoes, would be ideal for escape and evasion, if it came to that, so I realized she must have chosen it all for some other operational imperative. There are all sorts of weapons in the world, and I reminded myself that when this woman was dressed for work, she was anything but unarmed.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“I unlocked the door to the room and we went inside. “Sorry about the procedures,” I said, removing the earpiece. I turned off the phone and left it by the door. The apology was perfunctory. So was the shrug she offered in response. I bolted the door behind us.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“I made my circuitous way to the hotel and checked in.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“Two people, Chinese civilians, were heading toward me. Shit. I averted my eyes and changed my posture, dropping my shoulders, adopting a more rolling gait, giving them a persona to remember, a persona that wasn’t mine. I felt them looking at me closely as I passed. They might have seen what had happened; if they had, they would be in mild denial about it and trying to come up with some other explanation for the evidence of their senses, what the psychologists call “cognitive dissonance” and “reality testing.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All

“When I was about a meter away and beyond the range of his peripheral vision, I took a deep step in, dropped into a squat just behind him, and wrapped my arms tourniquet-tight around his legs just above the knees. I felt his body go rigid, heard him suck in a breath. In my adrenalized, slow-motion vision, I logged every detail: the height of the guardrail; rust marks on the metal; chewing gum ground black into the cement tiles from which his feet were about to suddenly levitate. I brought my hips in and exploded up and out. He shrieked, a high, atavistic sound of sheer animal panic, and I felt a spasm of terror rip through his body as I launched him into the air over the railing. The cigarette tumbled out of his mouth. His limbs swam crazily, uselessly, against the air around him. Then he was gone, below my field of vision. The wild shriek continued, cut off a second later by the sound of a resounding, dull thud twenty feet below. Tires screeched. Another thud. Crunching sounds. More screeching tires. Then silence.”
― Barry Eisler, Winner Take All