Influential Books
(and other writings)

The Prophet (Khalil Gibran), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Macbeth/Romeo & Juliet/Hamlet (William Shakespeare), Candide (Voltaire), The Republic (Plato), The Art of War (Sun Tzu), The Nightingale and the Rose (Oscar Wilde), The Black Cat/Tell-Tale Heart/The Raven (Edgar Allan Poe), Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin), The Last Sin Eater (Francine Rivers), Aesop Fables, To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee), The Interpretation of Dreams (Sigmund Freud)

Notable Excerpts

"Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate." (Sun Tzu, The Art of War)

"The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself." (Plato, The Republic)

"Persuasion is more effective than force." (Aesop, The North Wind and the Sun)

"Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one." (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)

"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it." (William Shakespeare, Macbeth)