> The best kinds of signs tell you what other people think you are thinking, or what you don't understand.

This is a brilliant life-hack and John Le Carre captured the beauty of this kind of thinking in The Russia House . This dialogue comes from Ken Russell's excellent film adaptation:

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"God, this is a list of questions that could unlock all the Sov military secrets and win the arms race at a stroke"

"Or lose it. I don't like lists, Clive. Lists tell you too much about the people who make them."

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"Sir, the shopping list... It's only questions, isn't it? It wouldn't tell anyone anything? "

"Everything. It would tell what we know by telling what we "don't" know. And it would tell what we would most like to know."