A blog over flowing with the wise words of Burn Notice's Michael Westen.
Matt Nix is a genius.
As a spy working for a government,you’re protected. You may work solo, but you have agreements with other spy agencies. Even when you’re surrounded by your enemies, that protects you. When your entire career consists of making enemies, there’s no greater danger than being totally cut off, alone. When you find yourself out in the cold, all you can do is put your head down and try to survive
— Michael Westen
In intelligence work, your most important tool, more important than any combat technique, any technical skill is your ability to twist the facts of a situation to your own advantage. The worse the facts are, the more you’ve got to sell it.
— Michael Westen
The higher-ups stay away from most operations. They have two rules - don’t screw up, and don’t get caught. They don’t get involved unless things go very, very wrong.
— Michael Westen
A few nails in the right places on a car door blocks the lever bar, making it impossible to open,and leaving you free to do pretty much whatever you want.
— Michael Westen
The active ingredient in pepper spray is the chemical capsaicin. Mix the birdseed with some alcohol and oil, pressurize it in a paint sprayer with CO2, and you have a homemade pepper grenade.
— Michael Westen
One of the most common cover I. D. is for a spy is service personnel. Of course,anyone who works in intelligence knows to check service personnel. So a quick phone call to the gas company, and you’ve created the perfect distraction.
— Michael Westen
When you’re outmanned and outgunned, the key is to appear bigger and stronger than you are. Take your enemy’s expectations and turn them against him. To make a good-sized fireball without a lot of ordnance, you need a powder with a high surface-area-to-mass ratio. Non-dairy creamer mixed with gunpowder works nicely.
— Michael Westen
In a firefight on the road, you’ve got a few options. Without something high-caliber, you’re not going to be able to penetrate the radiator or the firewall behind it. That leaves two options - the windshield or ricocheting bullets off the ground up through the undercarriage, which is one of the least-reinforced parts of the car. For sheer panic, it’s hard to beat bullets coming up from the floorboards.
— Michael Westen
You don’t last long as a spy if you don’t trust anyone. If you’re looking over your shoulder to see who’s coming after you,you can’t see where you’re going. Sometimes you just have to trust your gut.
— Michael Westen
Spies are supposed to travel light with nothing that could identify them. Some do, but most find that staying sane requires staying connected to something that reminds them why they do what they do. Pictures are particularly dangerous to carry, unless the people in them are already dead.
— Michael Westen
