The presence of danger has a way of making you feel fully awake.
It's a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn't felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid.
Paranoia: the gift of the survivor and the burden of the overtired, stressed, and terrified.
Right after 9/11, I mean, every agency can give their own gradation, but a nice, popular rule of thumb is everybody doubled down. I ended up in the NSA with about twice as much money as I had prior to 9/11.
Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness.
I'm getting guarded like nobody else in the country is being guarded, scouted on like no one else in the country is.
I'm not fearful by nature, but I am vigilant. When you walk into a prison, it's important that a sixth sense kicks in.
She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.
