“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.”

“We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma ...”

“If only it were possible to love without injury fidelity isnt enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body...”

“She looks at the swings, and I can see shes imagining what theyd look like if the kids werent there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never far away,...”