"A wise man once said that a person is known by the company he keeps, but could then also add that the character of the company is known by the people it keeps for the longest days, especially at the strategic decision making level."

“Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling.”

“So the laws of good driving forbade you to go off the magic ribbon except in extreme emergencies. You were ethically entitled to several inches of margin at the right-hand edge; and the man approaching you was entitled to an equal number of inches; which left a remainder of inches between the two projectiles as they shot by. It sounds risky as one tells it, but the heavens are run on the basis of similar calculations, and while collisions do happen, they leave time enough in between for universes to be formed, and successful careers conducted by men of affairs.”

“Have fun saving the world, or you are just going to depress yourself.”

“She had nothing in this world but her two hands and her crazy love for Jesus, who seemed, for his part, never to have heard of her.”

Source : Denis Johnson (2016). “Tree of Smoke”, p.112, Pan Macmillan

“Shahidullah Shahid said there is nothing Islamic in Pakistan’s constitution. He clearly can’t read. The truth is there is nothing Islamic in the TTP.”

“Of course [photography] cannot create, nor express all we want to express. But it can be a witness of our passage on earth, like a notebook.”

“Life may be treacherous, but you can always depend on death.”

“We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.”