All suicides have the responsibility of fighting against the temptation of suicide. Every one of them knows very well in some corner of his soul that suicide, though a way out, is rather a mean and shabby one, and that it is nobler and finer to be conquered by life than to fall by one's own hand.

The top priority of the terrorist — even more important than killing you — is to make himself your top priority. This is why protecting ourselves from terrorist violence is not enough to defeat terrorism, especially if we try to achieve safety in ways that elevate the importance of terrorists and wind up publicizing their causes.

How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.

Sometimes, people trying to commit suicide manage it in a manner that leaves them breathless with astonishment.

How, then, can terrorists hope to achieve much? Following an act of terrorism, the enemy continues to have the same number of soldiers, tanks and ships as before. The enemy’s communication network, roads and railways are largely intact. His factories, ports and bases are hardly touched. However, the terrorists hope that even though they can barely dent the enemy’s material power, fear and confusion will cause the enemy to misuse his intact strength and overreact. Terrorists calculate that when the enraged enemy uses his massive power against them, he will raise a much more violent military and political storm than the terrorists themselves could ever create. During every storm, many unforeseen things happen. Mistakes are made, atrocities are committed, public opinion wavers, neutrals change their stance, and the balance of power shifts.

I'm a grenade and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?

The best way to keep America safe from terrorism is to go after terrorists where they plan and hide.

We all want to avoid being harmed — but if the cost of doing so is making the terrorist the thing you care about most, to the exclusion of the other things that matter in your society, then you have handed him exactly the kind of victory that makes terrorism such a frequent and successful tactic.

If a person with multiple personalities threatens suicide, is that considered a hostage situation?

The strategy focuses on taking the fight against terrorists directly to them, isolating the terrorists from each other and potential allies, and disrupting plots before attacks occur.

If you want to accelerate someone’s death, give him a personal doctor. I don’t mean provide him with a bad doctor: just pay for him to choose his own. Any doctor will do. This may be the only possible way to murder someone while staying squarely within the law. We can see from the tonsillectomy story that access to data increases intervention, causing us to behave like the neurotic fellow.

The thing I don't understand about the suicide person is the people who try to commit suicide, for some reason they don't die, and that's it. They stop trying. Why don't they just keep trying? What's changed? Is their life any better now? No. In fact. it's worse, because now they've found out here's one more thing you stink at. And that's why these people don't succeed in life to begin with. They give up too easy.
I say, pills don't work? Try a rope. Car won't start in the garage? Get a tune-up. There's nothing more rewarding than reaching a goal you've set for yourself.

Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.

The most effective alternative process [to punishment] is probably extinction. This takes time but is much more rapid than allowing the response to be forgotten. The technique seems to be relatively free of objectionable by-products. We recommend it, for example when we suggest that a parent 'pay no attention' to objectionable behavior on the part of his child. If the child's behavior is strong only because it has been reinforced by 'getting a rise out of' the parent, it will disappear when this consequence is no longer forthcoming. (p. 192)