"Lieutenant Crowder reported that submersible as probably destroyed, and if you don’t think Lieutenant Crowder knows everything in the world, well, shit, just ask him."

"She was only eight years old, and still confused the way things should have been with the way they were."

"He sees the country going forward. He doesn’t see the suffering he’s creating to make it go in the direction he wants."

"The bullet doesn’t care who shot it, only where it’s going."

"Moss sighed and nodded. Might-have-beens was a stupid game, when you got right down to it. Look back on things, and you couldn’t help but see they’d come out the way they had to come out."

"A fisherman who wasn’t a born pessimist hadn’t been going to sea long enough."

"When you lose, Sis, the last war’s never over and done with."

"You have a fine stump speech there, Congresswoman, and I think you are sincere in it, but it doesn’t altogether match the way the world works."

"“The War Department has all sorts of opinions,” he said, sneering as he had when Dowling announced the Roosevelt was there. “A few of them bear a discernible relation to the real world—but only a few, mind you.”"

"“Major Potter isn’t a pal—not exactly, anyhow.” As far as he could see, the only thing he and the bespectacled major had in common was an unbounded contempt for the bluebloods who, because of who their grandfathers had been, got a higher rank and a bigger arena in which to display their blunders than they deserved."

"The War Department had never forgiven Jake for being right."

"Fashion made a harsh mistress."

"Martin was convinced the military police attracted self-righteous sons of bitches the way spilled sugar drew ants."

"“It’s not the way it was any more,” he said, half to himself. “Nothing is the way it was anymore.”"

"Whites are so mystified, they put race ahead of class."

"They’d kill him or he’d kill them. War reduced everything to a brutal simplicity."

"Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen."

"Robert E. Lee paused to dip his pen once more in the inkwell. Despite flannel shirt, uniform coat, and heavy winter boots, he shivered a little. The headquarters tent was cold. The winter had been harsh, and showed no signs of growing any milder. New England weather, he thought, and wondered why God had chosen to visit it upon his Virginia."

"He’s had less use for me outside the bedchamber since I stopped telling him things he wanted to hear."

"“Mobs,” Corippus said scornfully. “The bravest bastards in the world, till somebody fights back.”"

"There was, he remembered, far more to love than what went on in bed, but that had its place too."

"His eyes were black and shiny; he had somehow the air of a man who saw things no one else did. Whether those things were actually there, Argyros was not sure."

"Beauty was too rare in the world to be wasted."

"“The Holy Spirit will guide the assembled fathers to the truth,” the magistrianos said confidently. Being a veteran of years of bureaucratic infighting, he added, “Of course, we may have to help things along a bit.”"

"As riots have a way of doing, this one was rapidly outgrowing the incident that had spawned it."

"I am not especially wise, but I am especially stubborn."

"Research seemed a more profitable way to spend his time than mourning."

"“Why?” he cried, a groan that filled the room. “Ask God when you come before Him in judgment,” Riario said. “I intend to. He’d best have a good answer, too, or I’ll make Him pay. One day I had a wife I loved, two daughters I couldn’t afford to dowry, and a face I didn’t mind seeing in a mirror. A couple of weeks later…"

"[Dr.] Riario’s laugh was harsh. “I hate smallpox, and even more I hate being helpless against it. If it’s God’s curse as they say, why, I curse God back for it.”"

"Whether the bear beats the lion or the lion the bear, the rabbit always loses."

"Some people blame the devil to keep from owning up to their shortcomings."

"I suspect S.F. has an individualistic, antiauthoritarian trend to it not least because so many of the people who read and write it (not all by any means, but quite a few) are innerdirected introverts who make neither good leaders nor good followers. Am I talking about myself? Well, now that you mention it, yes. But I ain’t the only one, not even close."

"I see people who write characters who are loonies and make them convincing and believable, and I envy them tremendously. I don’t really understand them. It’s funny, because I’ve created my own monster. In the ‘Great War’ and ‘American Empire’ books, I’m writing the person who is the functional equivalent of Adolf Hitler. I’m inside his head — and that’s a very strange place for somebody who thinks of himself as a fairly rational fellow to be. That’s alarming."

"Many things are possible. Few things are certain."

"It seems a cold world without something … more." "On the contrary," said Oromis, "it is a better world . A place where we are responsible for our own actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment. I won't tell you what to believe, Eragon. It is far better to be taught to think critically and then be allowed to make your own decisions than to have someone else's notions thrust upon you. You asked after our religion, and I have answered you true. Make of it what you will."

"My father's work will not go unfinished, even if it takes me to the grave. That is what I want you, as a rider, to understand. All of Ajihad's plans, all his strategies and goals, they are mine now. I will not fail him by being weak. The empire will be brought down, Galbatorix will with dethroned, and the rightful government will be raised."

"Characters are born from necessity."

"Those whom we love are often the most alien to us."

"Applied properly, it [logic] can overcome any lack of wisdom, which one only gains through age and experience."

"Shall we dance, friend of my heart?"

"Live in the present, remember the past, and fear not the future, for it doesn't exist and never shall. There is only now."

"So tell me, is it true that men have ten toes, as is said?"

"No-one can function properly without occasional peace and quiet."

"When you can have anything you want by uttering a few words, the goal matters not, only the journey to it."

"The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living."

"To search and seek among the outer bounds, And when we land upon a distant shore, To seek another yet farther still."

"It never struck me as interesting that I didn't go to school — we had our own little world. I always thought of kids who were going to regular school as if they're the others, the separate ones."

"‘When you teach them—teach them not to fear. Fear is good in small amounts, but when it is a constant, pounding companion, it cuts away at who you are and makes it hard to do what is right.’"

"‘Fight if you wish. Deny what is before you if it comforts you. But nothing you do can change your fate.’"

"‘I am not ready. But when will we ever be ready?’"