“We are nature. Our every tinkering is nature, our every biological striving. We are what we are, and the world is ours. We are its gods. Your only difficulty is your unwillingness to unleash your p...”

“Pain held no terror for him. Pain was, if not friend, then family, something he had grown up with in his crche, learning to respect but never yield to. Pain was simply a message, telling him which ...”

“The problem with surviving was that you ended up with the ghosts of everyone youd ever left behind riding on your shoulders.”

“You couldnt live close to war and not have it grab you eventually.”

“Hell, were all bullet bait sooner or later. Doubt it makes much difference. You make it to sixteen, youre a goddamn legend.”

“Her face was smeared with mud and blood and ash. Just another bit of debris in the wreckage of war.”

“The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo.”

“Scenery is fine -but human nature is finer”

“As for me, I have a choice between honoring that dark life I've seen so many years moving in the junipers, or of walking away and going on with my own human busyness. There is always that choice fo...”

“Nature allows one kind to kill another, it's part of the law ... you wonder if man might not be the most savage of all creatures. He's among the few that preys on nearly every other being, that con...”

“Perfectly ImperfectWe have all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Each snowflake takes the perfect form for the maximum efficiency and effectiveness for its journey. And while the universal fo...”

“Landsman and Bina were married to each other for twelve years and together for five before that. Each was the other's first lover, first betrayer, first refuge, first roommate, first audience, firs...”

“It's always the people who strive to find, and tell you about one of your imperfections, that want to feel one step above you. The truth is their ten steps below you with nothing better to say.”