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For a great leader, colleague, friend, or parent to be his best, he has to acknowledge his worst. Throughout my life I've met plenty of superheroes, but the strongest and most effective among them were simply human and knew they weren't perfect. They were the men and women who, like my father, believed in their duty to country and sacrificed for others without hesitation. They all had their strengths and weaknesses. They excelled at times; they stumbled at times. But the great ones always made sure they could walk tall by recognizing their own enemy within and confronting it.

As a military professional, I knew that the most important element is trust- the vision had to be built on trust. The very basis for why soldiers fight the way they do is the trust they have in their teammates, their fellow soldiers. It's usually less dramatic off the battlefield but still equally important. Without trust in each other and trust in the institution, you will not be able to realize your vision.

Today, particularly in terms of combating terrorism, there are no front lines. Cities and neighborhoods are the battlefields. September 11 was a harsh reminder of this new reality.

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.

The human mind is a pattern, nothing more. The first dim flicker of awareness in the evolving forebrain of Australopithecus carried that pattern in embryo; and down through all the ages, as the human neural engine increased in power and complexity, gained control of its environment in geometrically expanding increments, the pattern never varied.

Man clings to his self-orientation as the psychological center of the Universe. He can face any challenge within that framework, suffer any loss, endure any hardship—so long as the structure remains intact.

Without it he’s a mind adrift in a trackless infinity—lacking any scale against which to measure his aspirations, his losses, his victories.

Even when the light of his intellect shows him that the structure is itself a product of his brain; that infinity knows no scale, and eternity no duration—still he clings to his self-non-self concept, as a philosopher clings to a life he knows must end, to ideals he knows are ephemeral, to causes he knows will be forgotten.

In the Gnostic formula it is understood that, though thrown into temporality, we had an origin in eternity, and so also we have an aim in eternity.

Too late, I realized how I had trapped myself. I had let sleep in as a guest, and death had slipped through the door.

Sure—that’s the concept. It wouldn’t be the first concept that had to be modified in the face of experience.

To scandalize has always been the pride of rebels, but much of it may satisfy itself in provocativeness of doctrine rather than deeds. Yet we must not underrate the extremes to which revolutionary defiance and the vertigo of freedom could go in the value-vacuum created by the spiritual crisis. The very discovery of a new vista, invalidating all former norms constituted an anarchical condition, and excess in thought and life was the first response to the import and dimensions of that vista.

One nice thing about working with a piece of machinery: you don’t waste time trying to justify your actions.

“Quelius—you’re nuts—did you know that?”

“Of course. That’s quite all right. Better embarked on an exciting insanity than moldering away in dull normality. One thing you can’t deny: we psychotics lead interesting lives.”

“It’s an old trick,” the security chief said. “Reverse cunning, we call it in the security game; indistinguishable from utter stupidity.”