Harry Turtledove

"Pound got back into his uniform. “See you again, maybe,” he said. She nodded. If she was enthusiastic, she hid it very well. She didn’t mind his money, but she sure wasn’t thrilled about him. Well, he was old enough to be her father. And he was a damnyankee. And she was a whore and he was a trick. That left it fourth down and time to punt."

"After a case like that, writing about the work O’Doull had done during the war didn’t seem so bad. That, at least, had mattered. This? While he was sewing and splinting and cutting, he looked forward to this with a fierce and simple longing. Now that he had it again, he discovered the danger of getting exactly what you thought you wanted. It could prove as unfortunate in real life as in fairy tales."

"The only way you could keep from getting old was by dying before you made it."

"“When I started, no one was sure what the machine gun was worth. Now FitzBelmont talks about blowing up Rhode Island with one bomb.” “Best thing that could happen to it,” Abell observed."

"“Do you know what Mobile is?” Sam Carsten said. “Tell me,” Lon Menefee urged him. “Mobile is what New Orleans would’ve been if it was settled by people without a sense of humor,” Sam said."

"“Glad you’re back safe. I heard you were wounded—happy it wasn’t too serious.” “Yeah.” The only wound that wasn’t serious was the one that happened to the other guy."

"“Stuck in fucking Alabama,” Armstrong Grimes grumbled. “What could be worse than this?” Squidface was cleaning his captured automatic Tredegar. He looked up from the work. “Well, you could be in hell,” he said. “Who says I’m not?” Armstrong said. It’s a godforsaken miserable place, and I can’t get out of it. If that’s not hell, what do you call it?” “Pittsburgh,” Squidface answered."

"Dying Boudicca managed a feeble nod, and sent her last words out to a breathlessly silent Theatre: "E'en so; 'Tis true. Oh!- I feel the poison! We Britons never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when we do first help to wound ourselves, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue, If Britons to themselves do rest but true." She fell back and lay dead. Shakespeare strode forward, to the very front of the stage. Into more silence, punctuated only by sobs, he said, "No epilogue here, unless you make it; If you want your freedom, go and take it.""

"And then, to Shakespeare's amazement and dismay, Burbage and Will Kemp tramped forward together, both of them plainly intent on marching on the Tower of London, too. Shakespeare seized Burbage's arm. "Hold, Dick!" he said urgently. "Let not this wild madness infect your wit. Can a swarm of rude mechanicals pull down those gray stone walls? The soldiers on 'em'll work a fearful slaughter. Throw not your life away." Before Burbage could answer, Will Kemp did: "The soldiery on the walls may work a fearful slaughter, ay, an they have the stomach for't. But think you 'twill be so? A plot that stretcheth to the Theatre surely shall not fall short of the tower.""

"But no line of ferocious, lean-faced, swarthy Spaniards appeared. Shouts and cries and the harsh snarl of gunfire suggested the dons were busy, desperately busy, elsewhere in London. When chance swept Shakespeare and Richard Burbage together for a moment, the player said, "Belike they'll make a stand at the tower." "Likely so," Shakespeare agreed unhappily. Those frowning walls had been made to hold back an army, and this... thing he was a part of was anything but. Up Tower Hill, where he'd watched the auto de fe almost a year before. A great roar, a roar full of triumph, rose from the men in front of him as they passed the crest of the hill and swept on towards the Tower Ditch and the walls beyond. And when Shakespeare crested the hill himself, he looked ahead and roared too, in joy and amazement and suddenly flaring hope. Will Kemp had been right, right and more than right. All the gates to the Tower of London stood open."

"Someone bumped into Shakespeare: Will Kemp. The clown made a leg- a cramped leg, in the crush- at him. "Give you good den, gallowsbait," he said cheerfully. "Go to!" Shakespeare said. "Meseems we are well begun here." "Well begun, ay. And belike, soon we shall be well ended, too." Kemp jerked his head to one side, made his eyes bulge, and stuck out his tongue as if newly hanged. With a shudder, Shakespeare said, "If your wind of wit sit in that quarter, why stand you here and not with the Spaniards?" "Why?" Kemp kissed him on the cheek. "Think you're the only mother's son born a fool in England?""

"For the Spanish Armada to have conquered England in 1588 would not have been easy. King Philip's fleet would have needed several pieces of good fortune it did not get: a friendlier wind at Calais, perhaps, one that might have kept the English from launching their fireships against the Armada; and a falling-out between the Dutch and English that could have let the Duke of Parma put to sea from Dunkirk and join his army to the Duke of Medina Sidonia's fleet for the invasion of England. Getting Spanish soldiers across the Channel would have been the hard part. Had it been accomplished, the Spanish infantry, the best in the world at the time and commanded by a most able officer, very probably could have beaten Elizabeth's forces on land."

"What people believed often turned out to be true just because they believed it. Charlatans and mages were quick to take advantage of that."

"And Ulric was a man of parts, no doubt about it. Just what the parts added up to…Yes, that was a different question."

"Hopes were only shadows that too often vanished in the pitiless light of reality."

"Believe worked well enough when a man could not measure it against facts. But when he could…Facts crushed to belief like a mammoth crushing a vole."

"“Knowledge is strange,” Eyvind Torfinn said. “You never can be sure ahead of time what you may need. Someone who is going to a strange place will carry different tools on his belt. Should he not carry different tools in his head as well?”"

"Ulric Skakki’s smile was so charming, it made Hamnet distrust him on sight—as if he didn’t already."

"“And do you know of opossums? Have they come this far north?” “I have seen one or two.” Sarus made a face. “Horrible things, like big rats with pointed faces.”"

"Mosquitoes laid eggs in those ponds and then rose in buzzing, biting swarms. Sometimes the clouds of them were thick enough to dim the sun. It was as if the soul of a vampire were reincarnated in a million beings instead of just one."

"“Foolishness,” Ulric Skakki said. “Everything that goes on between men and women is full of foolishness.”"

"A man who gets angry at the truth will have a hard time in life, don’t you think?"

"Hamnet Thyssen wondered if Witigis was a holy man or simply a madman. His vacant features didn’t promise much in the way of brains."

"If they had lawyers instead of teeth, they’d be as bad as people."

"“By God, you are a hateful man!” “Anyone who tells you anything you don’t want to hear is a hateful man,” Hamnet answered."

"He thought she was the most wonderful woman in the world. Of course he did—she agreed with him."

"If Earl Eyvind wanted to talk nonsense, he was welcome to, as far as Hamnet was concerned. If he wanted anyone else to take him seriously when he did…that was another story altogether."

"Women are what made me the way I am now. I do not believe the illness is also the cure."

"“Mammoths make me believe in God,” Trasimund said… “How could mammoths make themselves? God had to do it.” “You could say the same thing about mosquitoes.” Eyvind Torfinn punctuated the observation by slapping. “You could even say God liked mosquitoes better than mammoths, because he made so many more of them.”"

"“You believe in reincarnation, then?” Eyvind Torfinn asked eagerly. “Have you evidence to support your belief?”"

"From what I’ve seen, people who brag a lot are usually trying to convince themselves even more than other people."

"“And if you don’t bet, how do you expect to win?” Hamnet Thyssen didn’t look at things that way. To him, not betting meant you couldn’t lose. He hadn’t even thought of winning."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"[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.”"

"“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…"

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

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

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

"“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.”"

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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