“There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, these are matters of which no jest can be made.”

Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death

“Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance of them.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I have learned that neither kindness nor cruelty by themselves, independent of each other, creates any effect beyond themselves; and I have learned that the two combined, together, at the same time, are the teaching emotion.”

Edward Albee, The Zoo Story

“The CIA has been trapped by its own accomplishment. They succeeded in destroying the Soviet Union, and subsequently the KGB. So now that the Cold War was over, many people have begun to think that there is no need to have a high priced intelligence organization like the CIA anymore. The CIA needs to do something to justify its existence and maintain its budget.”

Paul Adirex, Until the Karma Ends

“At one time the KGB had been regarded as the most efficient intelligence organization in the world.”

Paul Adirex, Until the Karma Ends

“Maybe the KGB is still alive and active.”

Paul Adirex, Until the Karma Ends

“Most national leaders all over the world tend to be hypocrites, Sang Ya. That’s why people in many countries, Burma included, are suffering.”

Paul Adirex, Until the Karma Ends

“He often said that it was impossible to separate business from politics or vice versa.”

Paul Adirex, Until the Karma Ends

“Each person has his own destiny and possesses the characteristics required to fulfill that destiny.”

Paul Adirex, Mekong

“Everyone’s life is controlled by destiny, which is the consequence of karma in one’s past lives and present life.”

Paul Adirex, Mekong

“If you believe strongly in something, you can make it happen.”

Paul Adirex, Mekong

“Elves of any kind are strange folk.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“They always wished to talk to everything, the old Elves did.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Keen are the eyes of the Elves.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

“Elves know a lot and are wondrous folk for news, and know what is going on among the peoples of the land, as quick as water flows, or quicker.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“The Sea Gypsies were nomadic people who roamed the sea in their dugout canoes from island to island ranging from Indonesia to Burma. The three groups of Sea Gypsies who populated several islands in Thailand’s Andaman Sea were called Urak Lawoi, Moken, and Moklen. The Urak Lawoi group had settled on Adang and Lipe while the other two groups lived on Phuket and also on the Surin islands near the Burmese border. The Urak Lawoi, who numbered about six hundred on Lipe, were governed by a village chief who was under the administration of the governor of Satun province. Although the Sea Gypsies had their own spoken language, they attended a school established on Lipe by the Thai Ministry of Education. There they learned from Thai teachers to speak, read, and write Thai.”

Paul Adirex, The King Kong Effect

“A box without hinges, key, or lid,

Yet golden treasure inside is hid.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots, some are not.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Dwarves can make a fire almost anywhere out of almost anything, wind or no wind.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Everyone must do his duty.”

Eric Van Lustbader, The Ninja