Op-Center Quotes
"To me, Greg, this morning is way back. Especially on days like these. What I wouldn't give to be on a fishing boat with my uncle Pak in Yangyang."
"But sometimes I'd rather be fighting fish and storms than bureaucrats. You remember what it was like."
"The marketers have taken over from the talent. It's that way in intelligence work, government, even at the Friendship Society."
"Forget about improving the way the agency does business: I spend most of my time fighting just to maintain the status quo."
"You never know when you'll be unarmed and have to defend yourself with a tightly rolled newspaper or a--"
"Wisdom and youth are not mutually exclusive… and that apart from it taking a helluva long time to stand up straight in the morning, age really was a state of mind."
"He wasn't for us, and frankly, I don't think Oh had all ten toes on the ground. But it's funny. More and more I find myself thinking he was on to something."
"Everything's got to be studied and evaluated until your initiative is colder than Custer."
"Soonji loved the Embassy and she admired the Ambassador. Don't-- don't let her go there. Not the way she was."
"Major Lee didn't care about hurt feelings in North Korea or effusive praise and vigorous handclapping that had come from Moscow, Beijing, and Paris."
"The Major's requisition order was marked 'Eyes Only' and was shown only to the officer in charge of the HMV."
"Do you know that in my five years sitting here, this is the first requisition I've had."
"Major Carter read from the requisition. 'There exists a state of high alert in the southwestern corner of the DMZ.'"
"The President of North Korea does not want a war."
"They crucified Jesus and locked Galileo away, and none of that changed the truth of what they taught."
"The whole setup reminded him of the opening of The Brady Bunch."
"The walls, floor, door, and ceiling of the Tank were all covered with sound-absorbing Acoustix."
"I wasn't going to say you were wrong," Hood replied evenly. "But what I have to know is precisely how sure you are."
"Liz Gordon was sitting in her small office, decorated only with a signed photograph of the President, a carte de visite of Freud."
"The truth was, Liz enjoyed her espressos a great deal and didn't think about Hood when she had them."
"Instead, she went to work as a political reporter for The Hour in nearby Norwalk."
"We condemn rumors that its President personally ordered the terrorist attack."
"The Japanese will back us so long as they don't get their hair mussed."
"The Japanese underworld has been investing drug and gambling profits heavily in the North."
"Gregory Donald walked for a while after leaving the Embassy. He was anxious to get to the base."
"His poor Soonji. She gave up a college professorship in political science here to marry him."
"Relationships between people shouldn't be defined by society, but by the people involved."
"The sudden death of long-time leader Kim II Sung in 1994 left enough of a power void."
"Darrell, what's the name of the super-nationalists in Japan, the ones that blew up the Mexico City stock exchange?"
"People don't understand that so much of progress comes from learning by our mistakes."
"This wasn't a mistake. This is something we've never seen before."
"We started keeping video records of the images for future reference and found that whenever the transmitters were turned on there was an almost imperceptible burst of energy."
"The point is, the signal had a fingerprint, a signature we could check before running off on a wild whale chase."
"If we could compare an image from the instant before with one taken an instant after, we might be able to figure out what was done to the system."
"The same way astronomers search for asteroids moving against a star field."
"People have the right of all sovereign nations to protect their territory, and we regret that circumstances forced us to take extreme measures to do the same."
"I will not precipitate an incident, and if you were here I'd put my toe to your butt for suggesting I might."
"My family has paid it, many times over. Now I want to be with what's left of that family."
"It must be nice not to have to worry about the PC crowd."
"Just once before I die, I want to see the person who's going to deliver us from bullshit, who's going to do what's right even if he takes an ax in the belly."
"Work is healthy. Worry is rust upon the blade."
"If only one person from each side wants peace, and can convince another person on their side to want it, and those two can convince two more people, and those four, four more, we will have the beginning we need."
"The personality and industry of his people had been kept down and perverted for too many years, and it would stop now."
"You know, it took us nearly ten hours to pick up our first real lead, and we needed help from a North Korean spy just to get that."
"A civilized person could not kill for a jolt in the polls, or to make a point."
"Children love to fight and rarely think about death. They're the perfect soldiers."
"There's no question about that, quite frankly, I'd go to the first strike scenario."
"Shit, I used to laugh at Shakespeare or whoever it was said that 'For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost' business. Well, he was right."
"If I back down from what I believe, then either I've lived a lie or I'll be living one from now on."
"With these things and our night-vision goggles, we can move like a goddamn mountain lion."