John Abizaid Quotes

It is the strain of walking around the world-down the street, riding city buses and elevators, moving from place to place to place-and not knowing who might want to destroy you, who might like to fill your heart with poison, who might rob you and stab you, who might stand above you in the dark with a tarantula.

We live in a pretty bleak time. I feel that in the air. Everything is uncertain. Everything feels like its on the precipice of some major transformation, whether we like it or not.

I am not free because I can be exploded anytime.

The world that we all knew before, could wake up in feeling safe... now it seems that everything has been turned upside down.

Most of us don't have to worry about being shot if we poke our noses outside. So we are comfortable, but the people I'm writing about are definitely not comfortable, and being shot while they're still inside is a good possibility.

We live in an unsafe world.

I lived for 10 years in Los Angeles, and the one element that surpasses everything else - that you are very conscious of - is fear. You can smell it.

Fear–fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that make it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees, or even planting next year's crops...

We are going through a terrible crisis. We do not know exactly what is going to happen, but in our hearts the pendulum of the seismograph is already swinging.

No man can always have riches.

Terror is the order of the day.

The state of things and the dispositions of men were then such, that a man could not well tell whom he might trust or whom he might fear.

The way to feel safe is never to feel secure.

Since September 11, 2001, the real world has become too scary for a lot of people to be with - all the time.

When I first walked into Uber, it was very difficult because people were unsure about what was going to happen - there was a real sense of powerlessness.

The unknown is always scary.

I never think I'm safe. I always live in fear I will lose.

By the time I'm nine I know the world is a dangerous place. I've heard whispers about razorblades in apples, about Charlie Manson and his family. But no one is offering any clear information.

I go around the world dealing with running and hiding... I can't take a walk in the park . I can't go to the store... I have to hide in the room. You feel like you're in prison.

You fear that if you lower your guard for even one second your whole world will disintegrate into chaos

The. World. Is. Not. A. Safe. Place.

I never know if the person I'm shaking hands with is coming to kill me. That's something you have to live with when you cross the lines.

Survival...is an infinite capacity for suspicion.

You do have this circumstance in Karachi that because people know things are changing, the stakes are higher. Everyone is thinking, "My home is threatened, my job is threatened, my identity is threatened, my world is threatened." And that creates a very particular sort of climate, that is linked.

One certainty we all accept is the condition of being uncertain and insecure.