Shut Up!
Referring to the protagonist, Paul Christopher, a CIA field officer (again—and very consistent with Charlie Wilson’s War) in Christopher’s Ghosts, author Charles McCarry, says: “He [Christopher] had learned when he was very young that if he kept quiet, the other person would fill the silence.” McCarry also tells us at one point that Christopher’s key to a debriefing is to shut up and not interrupt—Christopher claims that “everyone has a story to tell, if only you have the patience to wait for it and not get in the way of it.”
So: Shut up!
I’m practicing (a 2008 resolution) keeping quiet, and waiting for the story to emerge. (Fat chance, my colleagues would say—screw them.)