The sayers do not know and the knowers do not say.

It is only when a person gets into difficulty that one can truly see his heart.

A fight forms a powerful and strange bond between men.

A club hurts the flesh, but evil words hurt the bone.

Because it doesn’t take much courage to fight when you still believe you can win. What takes real courage is to keep fighting when all hope is gone.

[...] it doesn't take much courage to fight when you still believe you can win. What takes real courage is to keep fighting when all hope is gone.

This was not uncommon in government-run operations, where a request that someone do their job often induced a catatonic state that might last anywhere from a couple of minutes to an hour.

[...] The monks sped up the process up for us laowai who have less time, less patience for basics, and a greater need for external markers of our accomplishments.

When you are the only laowai in a village of 10,000 Chinese martial artists and you've sat through several dozen films where a white man shouts, "You Chinese dog," before getting his ass kicked, it starts to irritate you. We all need role models.

I knew very little about Afghanistan. Like most of my fellow countrymen, I preferred not to learn too much about dysfunctional countries until after my government invaded them. It's emotionally easier that way.