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From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it’s a big bureaucratic place. Think ‘post office with spies.’

Barry Eisler

The strangest thing about the low quality of Internet argument is that effective argument isnt really so difficult. Sure, not everyone can be Clarence Darrow, but anyone who wants to be at least competent at argument can do it.
BARRY EISLER

Argument Quality Want
The two most important things to do for self-defense are not to take a martial arts class or get a gun, but to think like the opposition and know where you’re most at risk.
BARRY EISLER

Art Gun Thinking
The movie is someone else’s art. But it’s great marketing for books.
BARRY EISLER

Art Book Marketing
Paper publishers are doing everything they can to slow the transition to eBooks because, in a digital world, paper publishers’ high hardback margins essentially disappear.
BARRY EISLER

Paper Transition World
The post office actually achieves its mission. I wish we could say the same of the CIA.
BARRY EISLER

Achieve Office Wish
It would be awesome to be so impressive that we could sway people to our way of thinking just by declaiming our thoughts, but probably most of us lack such gravitas. Luckily, there’s something even better: evidence, logic, and argument.
BARRY EISLER

Declaiming Impressive People Thinking
The job of the screenplay is to identify and extract the essence of the story from the novel and reconfigure it for the screen, maintaining its essence in a different vehicle.
BARRY EISLER

Different Essence Jobs
I wandered the earth a mercenary, daring the gods to kill me but surviving because part of me was already dead.
BARRY EISLER

Daring Earth Kill
Overall, one of the things that excites me most about self-publishing is that the highest-value use of my time in promoting the books will be found in writing more of them.
BARRY EISLER

Book Self Writing
If you focus on the risks, they’ll multiply in your mind and eventually paralyze you. You want to focus on the task, instead, on doing what needs to be done.
BARRY EISLER

Focus Mind Risk
The City. Can’t you hear it? People. Machines. Even thoughts so thick your bones feel it and your ear almost catches it.
BARRY EISLER

Cities Machines People
I have a long-standing interest in what I like to think of as “forbidden knowledge”: methods of unarmed killing, lock picking, breaking and entry, spy stuff, and other things that the government wants only a few select individuals to know.
BARRY EISLER

Government Long Thinking
Anger, and the self-righteousness that is both the cause and consequence of anger, tends to be easier on the psyche than personal responsibility.
BARRY EISLER

Causes Responsibility Self
I can understand the allure of a venerable Big Six imprint, of a shot at the New York Times list, of a publisher-sponsored book tour, of seeing your hardbacks in bookstores and your paperbacks in supermarkets.
BARRY EISLER

Allure Country Imprint Shot Understand
From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it’s a big bureaucratic place. Think ‘post office with spies.’
BARRY EISLER

Office Spy Thinking
I love Japan, and Tokyo is my favorite city.
BARRY EISLER

City Country Favorite Love

From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it’s a big bureaucratic place. Think ‘post office with spies.’

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From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it’s a big bureaucratic place. Think ‘post office with spies.’

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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