"Or maybe I was too suspicious. This business can do that to you. You have to remember to keep it simple. You don’t need to look for the great sinuous, complicated schemes reeking of subterfuge and malice when a little stupidity followed by desperate cover-up efforts will explain everything just as well. And you have to remember to keep an eye out for who stands to gain. That alone will flag your villain eight times out of ten."

"Time was the enemy never to be conquered and there were no reserves to help stay the tide."

"“Don’t even think about it, horse. I have friends in the glue business. Get up.” They got. Unlike women, you can show horses who is boss."

"You don’t alter the past, turn the tide, or change yourself by brooding about your hidden motives. You will surprise yourself every time, anyway. Nobody ever figures out why."

"You get paranoid in this business. But maybe paranoids get that way because of all the people out to get them."

"“You should forget Ami. I’m much more interesting.” In that instance I decided she was wrong. Amiranda Crest was a woman. This one wore a woman’s body but the creature inside was spoiled, vain, snobbish, and probably not very bright."

"“I’m not accustomed to disobedience.” “You are to get out into the real world more. You’d get in practice real fast.”"

"We like to know that our guests are out when they head out. Some of them are so slow they might not remember which side of the door they’re supposed to be on when it shuts."

"“Yeah?” I snapped when I yanked the door open. It didn’t matter that the woman was wearing a thousand marks’ worth of custom cloth or that the street was filled with guys in flashy livery. I’ve seen too much of the rich to be impressed."

"I got a little too intense. He backed off and gave me the look you give the nut on the corner preaching that pixies are the secret masters and if we don’t do something they’re going to run off with our sisters and daughters."

"I have a statistic I want you to consider, Garrett. Of all the guys who have loved her, only one is still alive."

"If you ask me, the difference between a hero and a coward is that a hero find some damn-fool way to con himself into going ahead instead of doing the sensible thing."

"“The Sair is accustomed to dealing with unbelievers, but even from them he expects the honor and deference due his rank.” “I’ll be sure not to slap him on the back and ask if he wants a beer,” I said."

"Folks always believe their own racism is the result of divine inspiration, incontestably valid."

"“Kayean and I used to walk up here at night to, uh…” “In a graveyard?” “Nothing like tombstones to remind you how little time you have for the finer things in life.”"

"“I’m beginning to wonder if we ought not to re-examine your diet, Morley. Such unrelenting pessimism must have some deficiency at its base.” “The only deficiencies bothering me are of good luck, financial wherewithal, and female companionship.”"

"When you consider the possibility of wizards being involved in anything, the smart thing to do is to assume the worst."

"Slick, Garrett. Remind me not to get on your wrong side. You’re so slick you’d slide uphill."

"She made no effort to peel herself from me. I thought about pushing her away—sometime next week."

"But somewhere along the way he had made up his mind and set it in concrete. Changed circumstances would not budge him."

"Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day."

"I jumped up, seized the moment by the scruff of the neck and seat of the pants, and ran him out the door to the accompaniment of appropriate old-time remarks about seedy little army types who failed to acknowledge the natural superiority of their overlords, the Marines."

"And I love what money does to you humans. It’s the only thing that saves you from being totally tedious."

"There is no way to get your health back. You live on memories of what was and fantasies about what might have been. Both can be deadly to the man who loses sight of the demarcation between them and reality."

"I did not reflect on what my response, as Captain, would have been toward an underling with my present attitude. The Words Immortal are: That Was Different."

"Suvrin had a little too much of the politician in him. Too much of the kind of mind willing to let an individual go so the rest will not be inconvenienced."

"I’m an incurable romantic. The essence of romance is an unshakable conviction that next time will be different."

"All is not lost. But neither is it found."

"Seemed to have made peace with the bad times. Some manage that with comparative ease. Others remain crippled for life. Those are not the sort who remain soldiers. They become ex-soldiers and get intimate with wine or poppies."

"But with royalty you never know. They think differently than real people. The real world never quite seems to reach them."

"But, no. It was too late. Fortune’s die was cast. The cruel game had to be played to its end, no matter what anyone wanted."

"It was the wee hours of the morning, when even the heartbeat of the world had trouble thumping on."

"“It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” my darling whispered to me. “People go at the oddest times and from the oddest causes.” “Soldiers live,” I muttered. “You’re turning that into a mantra.” “You feel guilty. You wonder why him and not me, then you’re glad it was him and not you, then you feel guilty. Soldiers live. And wonder why.”"

"Being an old cynic myself I have strong notions about the true value of human gratitude. It is a currency whose worth plunges by the hour."

"Exact words were of no consequence. At heart the squabble was as old as humanity itself, fug-headed antiques locking horns with omniscient youth."

"Against the years all men campaign in vain."

"Life is never like a canal, flowing gently through a straightforward and predictable channel. It is more like a mountain brook, zigging and zagging, tearing things up, sometimes going almost dormant before taking an unexpected and turbulent turn."

"She had a full measure of youth’s indifference to the past."

"Generating rumors is one thing even the most inept armed force does exceedingly well."

"He had leaped into the embrace of self-delusion. There was a lot of that going around."

"She was not listening. If she listened she would have to hear uncomfortable truths."

"I tend toward the cynical view where religion is concerned."

"I felt wonderfully wicked. I always do when I frustrate overly powerful, responsible-to-no-one types who think all existence was created only for their pleasure and exploitation."

"A sign of advancing age. You start obsessing about how much you have to get done in the time that you have left."

"She—and I—were of an age now where we spent too much time wondering how things might have gone had we made a few different choices."

"I did not expect them to try anything but I am alive at my age because I make a habit of being ready for trouble when it seems most unlikely."

"There was one temporal power greater than the greatest sorcery. Greed."

"It proved to be much farther than I had hoped. It always is when you are running away."

"I reminded myself that Khang Phi is bereft of arms. That the monks abhor violence. That they always yield to strength, then seduce it with reason and wisdom. Yes, sometimes it does take a while."

"Baladitya understands that in addition to being foreign territory the past is, as history, a hall of mirrors that reflect the needs of souls observing from the present. Absolute fact serves the hungers of only a few disconnected people. Symbol and faith serve the rest."