Цитаты из книги Black Bag

Cash rich, time poor.

If I do nothing other than walk in a straight line for half an hour, double back on myself and go home, I feel a profound sense of purpose, I question nothing, my mind is set. What am I without black bag? Without black bag I am some pitiful and unremarkable man going around, doing things. Shameful. The thought of rewriting the last few weeks or months of my life without black bag fills me with a wincing, vertiginous horror.

Context is so important, she says. Context and invitation. Knowing when to take the right liberty. No context means no sex.

Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.

Have you ever met a man who got exactly what he wanted? They always seem a little confused, even shell-shocked. They speak at one remove, as if delivering their own eulogy.

To trust in the arts is an act of hubris so self-destructive the gods don’t even bother to punish you for it. It is to become a monstrous politician of an insecure republic, an estate agent of your own soul, a demon of lubricity.

Black bag isn’t trying to convince you of anything, or influence you in any way. With black bag there is no comparison, no competition. It is a confrontation with something ...
With what?

I feel the sense of loathing that comes only when someone reminds you of yourself at your worst. The desire to punish them for it.

It is only quackery which creates a space for the noumenal.

I will speak to you in present tense. The silliest tense. And also the closest we come to talking directly to God.

That is how you profitably subcontract a genuine sense of meaning in your life: deference to a higher authority.