"“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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Against the years all men campaign in vain."

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"“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.”"

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

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

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

"There are, of course, a thousand sophistries spewed by those who wish to deny individuals the opportunity to choose. Which is an arrogant presumption of a divine scale."

"This is what happens when you get old. You start thinking. Worse, you start telling everybody what you think."

"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."

"There are several huge monasteries—of which Khang Phi is the greatest—dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. The monks do not sort it into good and evil knowledge, nor do they make moral judgments. They take the position that no knowledge is evil until someone chooses to do evil with it."

"An adventure is somebody else slogging through the mud and snow while suffering from trench foot, ringworm, dysentery and starvation, being chased by people with their hearts set on murder or more. I have been there. I have done that, playing both parts. I do not recommend it. Be content with a nice farm or shop. Make lots of babies and bring them up to be good people."

"He was pursuing a running debate with his own guilts and ghosts—unless he was spouting proverbs and aphorisms, most of the meanings fairly obvious but a few convolute and obscure. He was particularly fond of “Fortune smiles. And then betrays.” He just could not get into bed comfortably with the truth that he had made that bed himself. He still had difficulty separating “ought to be” from “the way things really are.”"

"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."

"It looks like it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every single branch on the way down."

"Sadly, after years of study, I realize that most history may pivot on personal considerations like that, not on the pursuit of ideals dark or shining."

"Time is the most wicked of all villains."

"Desperate people will do what they must to survive. Only a fool would expect the results to be pretty."

"We are all the sum total of our pasts, good and evil."

"“It would take an entire nation a thousand years to build something this vast. No monument so huge can be a good thing.” “I don’t understand.” “Only a very great evil could remain so single of purpose, so uncaring of cost, as to create something so ultimately useless.”"

"Like most villains, he was wicked only most of the time and mainly in small-minded ways."

"We are not really a godless bunch. We are just the sort who ignore the gods—probably in the unconscious hope that the gods will not notice us."

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

"You are a hired sword. A soldier. You should not be playing philosophical games. Not even with yourself."

"Rage is a red, near-animate force, as bloated with compassion as a starving serpent."

"The poor idiot is a living testimonial to the fact that everything takes longer and costs more. Even magic can’t get you around that."

"I do not worship any gods myself, though I guess some are real in their own ways. I have to believe that all of them get regular belly-laughs because one of them was ingenious to create human sexuality. Even greed and lust for power do not come close to generating the stupidities that us being male and female do. But by giving it half a thought I can think of as many glories that spring from the same dichotomy."

"He had gained all the power he had dreamed of then—and had not known a moment of peace since."

"You can blame a wizard for anything and people will believe you."

"It is a chance to flit off and double-check my memory, which I have found to be astonishingly unreliable. Apparently none of us really remember anything exactly the way it happened. And often the divergence is proportional to the amount of ego and wishful thinking we have invested."

"The soldiers stumbled forward doggedly, cursing the bite of the wind while reminding one another that generals are seldom of sound mind and unbesmirched ancestry. They would not be generals if they were."

"That was not an exaggeration, that was an outright fabrication."

"“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."

"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."

"I heard Mather’s blather but it did not register as sense. I uttered, “Tooga ain’t no crazier than any other religion around here.” That seemed to offend everyone equally. Good."

"Though not as bad as most, he was going through that stage where he knew everything worth knowing and nothing his elders said—particularly if it bore any vaguely education hue—was worth hearing. He could not help that. It went with the age. And I was my age and could not help saying things I knew would do no good."

"He knew that he had screwed up but he was the kind of guy who, after he shoots his mouth off, cannot back down or admit any failing. The world is full of those people. All of us would be better off if their fathers would strangle them as soon as they showed signs of being that way. This particular fool was willing to sacrifice an army rather than admit his error."

"He had a distinct problem imagining minds working differently from his own."