Quotes by Barry Eisler

"The most important guideline when it comes to argument is the golden rule. If someone were addressing your point, what tone, what overall approach would you find persuasive and want her to use? Whatever that is, do it yourself."

"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."

"I read pretty eclectically - fiction, non-fiction, and poetry - and I've been inspired and influenced by a number of writers."

"Books are my art. The movie is someone else's art. But it's great marketing for books."

"The post office actually achieves its mission. I wish we could say the same of the CIA."

"The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness. You can't be a super-spy, watchful and paranoid every day. But I am more watchful than the average American."

"I've loved thrillers and spy stories since I was a kid. It's probably not a bad rule of thumb to write the kinds of stories you love to read."

"The fundamental difficulty that most novelists face when they are trying to adapt their own book into a screenplay is realizing that a screenplay is a completely different way of storytelling, and it has limitations."

"A heart beset by coronary disease will begin to recruit secondary arteries to carry oxygenated blood."

"I love Japan, and Tokyo is my favorite city."

"When I was in college, I became interested in various aspects of foreign policy and international relations. Even as a kid, I was interested in what I call, loosely speaking, forbidden knowledge."

"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."

"Publishing, legacy or indie, is a vehicle, and you can't opine about whether someone has chosen the right vehicle if you don't know where she intends to drive it."

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

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

"I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to heroes who do bad things and to villains who think they're the good guys, but I do find that moral ambiguity and conflict makes for great characters."

"Psychologically, it's always more pleasurable to blame others for our problems than it is to acknowledge our own responsibility."

"Stephen King has inspired me with his humor and honesty, and his admonition that the author's job is to tell the truth."

"After I sold my screenplay adaptation of 'Rain Fall' to Sony Pictures, I had no more creative involvement."

"I love Jet Li, but he looks very Chinese, and his English is Chinese-accented. He wouldn't have been the right guy to play a Japanese-American."

"Good argument is intended to persuade another."

"At the national level, I don't know how to describe a threat to destroy Country A in order to punish Country B other than to call it state terrorism."

"The Internet is a limitless library at your fingertips. It's a great place to start with the acquisition of knowledge. My process is to go to a place when I'm writing about it. Nothing captures the essence, feeling and flavor of a place better than when I'm actually there and doing the writing."

"If the reader cares, I don't think it matters so much whether your hero is in fact an anti-hero."

"Publishing for me is a business, not an ideology."