"He’d escaped the last dragnet as much by luck as by anything else. You could tell a man not to be stupid, and maybe—if he wasn’t stupid to begin with—he’d listen. But how the devil could you tell a man not to be unlucky?"

"Peacetime, though, felt like summertime. Even as you enjoyed it, you knew it wouldn’t last."

"“Death is never dignified.” O’Doull spoke with a doctor’s certainty. “Never. Dignity in death is something we invent afterwards to make the living feel better.”"

"“You see?” he said. “You just wanted me to tell you I was wrong.” “Well, of course,” Anne answered, and poked him in the ribs. “What else does a woman want to hear from a man?” “How about, ‘I love you’? How about, ‘You’re beautiful’?” Potter suggested. “Those are nice, too,” she agreed with a smile. “As far as I’m concerned, though, nothing’s better than, ‘You were right.’”"

"She hated the calendar, hated the mirror and what it showed her every morning. A handsome woman, that’s what you are. She would almost rather have been ugly. Then she wouldn’t have to remember the beauty she had been not so long ago."

"You can have as much fun in a library as you can at the cinema, and it doesn’t cost you anything."

"“Sir, you have been poking your nose into matters that do not concern you,” Abell said. “We discourage that.” We? You have a tapeworm? Dowling wondered."

"The party and the CSA could get by without a lot of fellows who brought only fanaticism. Losing somebody with brains would have hurt much more. Brains were harder to come by."

"“They can’t say anything against the government, not in public they can’t.” “Is it a country or a jail?” Carsten asked. “Near as I can tell, sir,” the second yeoman said, “it’s a jail.”"

"“Hoover is one of the best men we’ve ever had for getting things done,” David said, “and one of the worst for figuring out what to do.”"

"You kill everybody who doesn’t want to see reason, people will get mighty thin on the ground mighty fast."

"Maybe not thinking about the price of failure was what marked a hero. On the other hand, maybe it just marked a damn fool."

"Like a lot of jailers, he was convinced the police who hunted down criminals couldn’t find a skunk if it was spraying their leg."

"But, as often happened, the official and the real had only a nodding acquaintance with each other."

"Manicheism, n., The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition."

"“He lies. How can you trust a man who lies? You cannot. And any man who comes on the wireless and says, ‘I am going to tell you the truth’—well, what else can he be except a liar?”"

"“Sir, don’t you think Utah is a special case?” “Every case has partisans who insist it is special,” Hoover answered. “I recognize none of them. I believe none of them. The same principles must apply throughout the United States.”"

"Early summer in Nashville made a good practice ground for hell."

"Some people, though—some people think yelling something loud enough makes it so."

"Beauty didn’t last. Brains did."

"The only happy people she saw coming out of the place were a young couple, the man carrying a crying baby. Maternity wards are different, Nellie thought as she went past them. I bet they’re the only place in a hospital where people win instead of losing."

"That wasn’t even close to fair, and Sylvia knew it. But she’s already seen that political campaigns weren’t designed to be fair. They were designed to convince, by whatever means possible."

"“Your trouble, Major, is that you think people spell prosecute and convict the same way,” Moss said. “That’s not how it works. Even in military court, the defendant’s entitled to a fair shake.”"

"Of all the sins in this world, which is more unforgivable than the sin of not having enough money? None I can think of."

"A war is a disaster whether you win or you lose—it’s only a worse disaster if you lose."

"“That’s logical. That’s a rational,” Hosea Blackford said. “Politics, unfortunately, is neither.”"

"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."

"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."