Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us.

I'm fascinated by power, especially veiled power. Shadow power. The National Security Agency. The National Reconnaissance Office. Opus Dei. The idea that everything happens for reasons we're not quite seeing.

I've been through a lot. I've thought a lot about life, and I've spent a lot of time studying history and science.

Fear cripples faster than any implement of war.

Robert wondered if any of Harvard's revered Egyptologists had ever knocked on the door of a pyramid and expected an answer.

She saved my life...and I’ve ruined hers. They sat in silence for a full minute, the air between them growing heavy, as if they both wanted to speak, and yet had nothing to say. They were strangers, after all, on a brief and bizarre journey that had just reached a fork in the road, each of them now needing to find seperate paths.

One final bit of advice. The next time a senior administrator of the CIA tells you she has a national-security crisis Leave the bullshit in Cambridge.