"Some people had a vested interest in trouble. If it looked as if calm threatened to break out, people like that would do anything they could to thwart it."

"“God done made this happen. He kin make us come through it, too, so long as He take it in His mind He want to do dat.” “Amen,” Athenaeus said. Scipio made himself nod. He didn’t want to seem out of place—seeming out of place was one of his greatest fears, because it was deadly dangerous. But if God had really wanted to do something about this disaster, couldn’t He have stopped it in the first place?"

"In a way, misery loves company. In another way, if everyone’s in trouble, nobody can help anybody else get out of it."

"The Confederate States had been founded on the principle that change was a bad idea."

"Flora wasn’t sure she liked that in the abstract; whom a man knew shouldn’t have mattered so much as what he knew. But that didn’t change reality one bit."

"They eyed each other in perfect mutual incomprehension."

"“God bless you, suh, for what you done there.” “I don’t believe in God, anymore than I believe in Mother Goose,” Darrow said. “Foolish notion. But I do believe in justice, and you deserve that. Everyone deserves that.”"

"She knew the sea too well ever to trust it."

"When he came up for air, he gasped, “You never kissed me like that before.” “Well, you never asked me to marry you before, either,” Rita answered. He laughed. They kissed again. Heart pounding, he asked, “What else don’t I know?” “You’ll find out,” she said. “After the wedding.”"

"Yes, I know I haven’t told you anything. No offense, Sis, but you like running people’s lives so much, you don’t like it when they try and run their own."

"Soldiers don’t make policy. We only carry it out, and get blamed when it goes wrong."

"He spent years alternately chasing her and trying—always without much luck—to get her out of his mind. Now that he’d finally got her, finally found out just how much woman she was, losing her was the last thing he wanted. But two had to say yes. One was plenty for no."

"“What’s Guinness?” Hirskowitz asked Carsten. “It’s what they make in Ireland instead of beer,” Sam said helpfully. “It’s black as fuel oil, and almost as thick. It tastes kind of burnt till you get used to it. After that, it’s not so bad.” “Oh.” Hirskowitz weighed that. “Well, I’ll see. They make real beer, too?”"

"“Something wrong, sir?” Lieutenant Jenkins asked. “No good deed goes unpunished,” Morrell answered."

"They wouldn’t understand no matter what, any more than they would understand what life in the trenches was like. Experience brought understanding. Nothing else came close."

"You can’t get along with somebody who’s bound and determined not to get along with you."

"Falling asleep in a corset was impressive proof of what exhaustion could do."

"Agnes might know what she was doing heading into this marriage, but he didn’t. He had no clue; marriage wasn’t part of the curriculum at West Point. Maybe it should be, he thought. It might not produce better officers, but was very likely to produce happier ones."

"Proclaiming they had the answers was the easy part. Really having them, and making them work—that looked harder. That looked a hell of a lot harder to him. But some people would buy castles in the air because they were short of beans on the ground."

"Anne took her own attractiveness so much for granted, a man who showed he wasn’t completely in her grasp often succeeded in piquing her interest by sheer contrariness."

"“I don’t hide anything I aim to do; I just come right out and say it.” An alarm whistle went off in Anne’s head; any man who said something like that was almost bound to be lying."

"Anne saw his attention focus on her. It still wasn’t the look a man gave an attractive woman: more like the look a sniper gave a target."

"Your deplorable taste in politics aside, you’re an intelligent man."

"He was still very young, young enough to believe in the tooth fairy, the common sense of Congress, and a great many other unlikelihoods."

"“I’ll be all right,” Nellie said. “This is something God meant women to do.” And if that doesn’t prove God is a man, I don’t know what does."

"That held enough truth to be provocative, not enough to be useful."

"There’s no such thing as glory, near as I can tell. If the machine guns didn’t kill it, the artillery did."

"He hated parliamentary procedure, but he’d started learning it anyhow, even if he did think it was only a way to cheat by the numbers."

"A man who couldn’t see truth when it tried to shoot him wouldn’t live long, and didn’t deserve to."

"“Has anyone ever told you, sir, that you may be too damn smart for your own good?” “A whole raft of people, Colonel Landis,” Morrell answered cheerfully. “Once or twice, they’ve even been right.”"

"“I never knew any Sonorans before you. You’re a good fellow. You ever get tired of trying to scratch out a living down where you’re at, you bring your family on up to Alabama. Plenty of good farm country there. You’d live high on the hog.” “Thanks, amigo, but no thanks.” Rodriguez’s smile was sweet and sad. “I want to go home. I want to talk español, to see my friends and family. And in Sonora, I am a man. In Alabama, I am a damn greaser.” He tapped a brown hand with a brown finger to remind Pinkard of what he meant. In the trenches, Jeff had long since stopped worrying about their being of different colors. Hip was right, though; it would matter in Alabama."

"She looked so angelic, any real angel who saw her would have been extremely suspicious."

"“Do I tell you how to arrange your life, Carlton?” he demanded. “Only when you open your mouth,” Ben answered. “Sir.”"

"“Pretty damn soon, the Rebs’ll pack it in here, too, I expect,” Carlton said. “Every blasphemy that passes your lips means a hotter dose of hellfire in the world to come,” McSweeney answered.” I’ve seen enough hellfire right here on earth,” Carlton said. “The kind of the preachers go on about don’t worry me as much as it used to.”"

"“You’re still learning the difference between being an agitator and being a politician. Listen to me, Flora.” He sounded very earnest. “Compromise is not a dirty word.” “Maybe it should be,” she answered."

"What people believe and what they’ll do because they believe it is a big part of what’s real, especially in politics."

"“I’ve been thinking,” George Enos said…. Beside him, Carl Sturtevant was panting more than a little. “Probably won’t do you any lasting harm,” he said."

"It was like dying and going to hell, except a little hotter and a little stickier. July in Tennessee was not the ideal weather in which to fight in a barrel."

"Scipio would sooner have gone on without the revolution than the other way around."

"Down near the Florida border, Georgia could give South Carolina lessons in heat and humidity."

"Don’t do anything to make things worse was the eleventh commandment of the ghetto, at least as important as the original ten."

"“I must conclude that my views on the subject are also the views of the large majority of the American people.” That was probably true. Because of it, Flora did not have a good opinion of the political wisdom of the large majority of the American people. Nationalism kept too many from voting their class interests."

"“Maybe we’ll get some use out of battleships in the next war after all.” He didn’t doubt there would be a next war; there would always be a next war."

"The only people who love a war are those who have never fought in one."

"Potter studied him. “I never have figured out how smart you are, Featherston, but you’ve made it plain you’re shrewd enough and to spare. If you hadn’t made the fatal mistake of being right at the wrong time, we might have the same rank by now.”"

"I’ll tell you, though, this whole business of war would be a hell of a lot more fun if you didn’t get shot."

"Some of those men were black, the new units going forward along with the white troops who have been in the field for years. The Negro soldiers charged straight at the U.S. trenches; they weren’t skilled in the fire-and-move tactics the veterans had learned by painful experience. And they went down in gruesome numbers. When they screamed, Bartlett couldn’t tell their voices from those of white men."