The Marching Season Quotes

“So what are you planning to do with the rest of your life?
Develop a drinking problem. More Scotch, please.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“Men don’t quit the CIA unless they have principles. And men don’t come back to the CIA when their president asks them unless they believe in honor. Your honor is your weak point.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“That morning he rose early and made coffee. He logged on to the computer, checked his E-mail, and read newspapers on-line until the German girl in his bed stirred.
He had forgotten her name—something like Ingrid, maybe Eva. She had childbearing hips and heavy breasts. She had dyed her hair black to appear more sophisticated. Now, in the gray morning light, Delaroche could see she was a child, twenty at most. There was something of Astrid Vogel in her awkwardness. He felt angry with himself. He had seduced her for the challenge of it—like making a steep ascent on his bike at the end of a long ride—and now he just wanted her to leave.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“You have a face of angles and sharp edges. Those angles will be turned into curves and the edges dulled. I intend to shave a portion of your cheekbones to make them smoother and rounder. I’ll inject collagen into the tissue of your cheeks to make your face heavier. You have a very thin chin. I’ll make it squarer and thicker. Your nose is a masterpiece, but I’m afraid it must go. I’ll flatten it and make it wider between the eyes. As for the eyes, there’s nothing I can do except change their color with contact lenses.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“He took no pleasure from the act of killing, only a sense of accomplishment from carrying out his assignment in a professional manner. Delaroche did not consider himself a murderer; he was an
assassin. The men who ordered the killings were the real murderers. Delaroche was just the weapon.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“Michael ordered a beer from the flight attendant. He telephoned the apartment
again, but there was still no answer. He usually spoke to Elizabeth several times a
day because she called home constantly to check on the children. Today, they had
not spoken since Douglas’s swearing-in ceremony. He had been back at work just
one day, but already he could sense a distance between them. He felt guilty, but
he also felt a contentment—a sense of purpose; indeed, a sense of excitement—
that he had not felt in many months. He hated to admit it, but the Agency seemed
like home. Sometimes it was a dysfunctional home, with quarreling adults and
incorrigible children, but it was home nonetheless.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“waited twenty minutes at the taxi stand for a
rattletrap Lada sedan. He smoked cigarettes to cover the stench of exhaust
pouring into the backseat”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“Delaroche took no pleasure from killing, yet it left him with no remorse. He was trained to carry out assassinations with brutal and mechanical swiftness. The quickness with which he killed insulated him from any guilt or remorse. It was as if someone else were performing the act. He was not the murderer; the men who ordered the death were the real killers. Delaroche was just the weapon: the knife, the gun, the blunt object. If he had not carried out the contract, someone else would have”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“Delaroche killed for two reasons: because he was hired to kill or to protect himself. Maurice Leroux fell into the second category. He had never killed out of anger, nor had he ever killed for revenge. He believed the blood lust for revenge was the most destructive of emotions. He”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“She was also a gifted liar who had never been saddled with a cumbersome moral compass.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“the economy of movement of a battery-powered toy.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season