“Fear has made them sloppy. The world teeters at a precipe. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man's efficiency.”

“If you want to be a new man you have to stay in new places, and do new things, with people who never knew you before. If you go back to the same old ways, what else can you be but the same old person?”

“One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.”

“Enough pain makes a coward of anyone.”

“It was a look that gave her a tingle, all right, but not in a good way. In that look she saw her silly bloody hopes as twisted and broken as shed left that Lowlanders arm, and it was no ones fault ...”

“A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time and never gotten anywhere.”

“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments there are consequences.”

“You can't hurt me the way you think you can. But even if you could? I would rather die with the taste of you on my tongue than live and never touch you again. I'm in love with you, Mara. I love you...”

“The assumption is that if I expend myself for myself in the end all Ill be left with is myself, and that alone is frightening. But what Ive failed to consider is that I have to expend so much of my...”

“What do you think my chances might be of finding a soul mate in the group of you? I'll be lucky if I can just find someone who'll be able to stand me for the rest of our lives. What if I've already...”

“There were a group of people before the Ascension known as the Astalsi. They claimed that each person was born with a certain finite amount of ill luck. And so, when an unfortunate event happened, ...”

“Well, good luck, the Vietnam verbal tic...It was as though people couldnt stop themselves from saying it, even when they actually meant to express the opposite wish, like, Die, motherfucker. Usuall...”

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

“It's the fricking reality that destroys plans.”

“An exceedingly well-informed report,' said the General. 'You have given yourself the trouble to go into matters thoroughly, I see. That is one of the secrets of success in life.”