"“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."

"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."

"Pound saw problems and solutions with an almost vicious clarity. As far as he was concerned, everything was simple. And damned if watching him in action didn’t make you wonder whether he had it right and everybody else looked at the world through a kaleidoscope that made everything seem much more complicated than it should have."

"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."

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

"“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."

"They eyed each other in perfect mutual incomprehension."

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

"A man of strong opinions but limited vocabulary, O’Doull thought."

"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.”"

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

"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."

"“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."

"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."

"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."

"“Are you going to see if history can repeat itself? And are you setting me up to take the fall if it does? It can’t be your fault, after all.” By you he didn’t mean Abell’s alone, but all the officers in Philadelphia who thought of war as theory and maps and not as cordite and burning barrels and mangled men. They were good at what they did. Because they were, they thought they knew everything there was to know about the business of organized slaughter. Morrell had a different, and lower, opinion."

"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."

"Because he didn’t much care whether he won or lost, he had a terrific poker face. “Nobody can tell what you’re thinking,” one of the other guys in the game grumbled. “Me? I gave up thinking for Lent,” Chester said. Everybody sitting around the table laughed."

"“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."

"Jonathan Moss didn’t like Houston. It was even hotter and muggier than Georgia and Alabama, and that was saying something. New Orleans was supposed to be just as bad, or maybe worse, but you could have a good time in New Orleans. If you could have a good time in Houston, Moss hadn’t found out how."

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

"Fashion made a harsh mistress."

"In a poker game, you were either a shark or you were bait."

"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."

"Anyone who forces something on someone and then says he will be better for it—you will, I hope, understand me when I say this is difficult to appreciate."

"Anytime a politician said he wouldn’t beat around the bush, you were well advised to keep your hand on your wallet."

"“What’s obvious,” Morrell observed, “isn’t always true.”"

"“Life is hard.” Rodriguez shrugged. “And after life is done, then you die.” He shrugged again. “What can anyone do?” It was a good question. It was, when Pinkard thought about it, a very good question. If there were any better questions out there, he had no idea what they might be. “You do the best you can, is all,” he answered slowly, and then looked around at the hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere he was currently inhabiting. “If this here is the best I can do, I been doin’ somethin’ wrong up till now.”"

"Hal Williamson shook his hand and said, “Good luck to you, buddy. Goddamn if I didn’t learn something from you.” “What’s that?” Cincinnatus asked. “Colored guys—you’re just like anybody else, only darker,” Hal answered. Cincinnatus laughed. “Shit, I’ll that that. Good luck to you, too, man.”"

"The newspapers extolled every skirmish as one Bonaparte would have admired (clumsy propaganda, in a province that had never reconciled itself to the French revolution), but anyone who believed all the newspapers said deserved nothing better than he got."

"Something does stink down in Richmond. If we try to root it out now, we are liable to lose the war in the confusion that would follow. But if we don’t try to root it out, we are liable to lose the war from the confusion it causes."

"No, he hadn’t a clue. She studied him—perfect coif, perfect clothes, perfect confidence. Inside, where it didn’t show, she smiled a hunter’s smile. Perfect target."