“Czechs simply dont say theyre going camping or spending time outdoors. They say, in Czech, that they are going into the nature as though nature, proda, is beyond a place in the woods or other forms...”

“A wave of saudade swept over me as I realized home never existed at all. The concept of home felt far from my reach, and I felt sick with longing.”

“Adversity has the remarkable ability of introducing the real you to yourself.”

“The most insidious of our country, the greediest and highest rung of our socioeconomic ladder, line their pockets with misappropriated funds as military personnel and hordes of civilians are maimed...”

“There are people who come home from war and want to talk about the pain, but no one wants to listen; there are others who want to keep silent and repress the memories, and all their family and frie...”

“In movies, war only looks romantic. Tell my gal I love her close-up shot, and fade out. It doesnt work as beautifully and neat in real life. Flying chunks of human flesh and screaming orphans reall...”

“The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one anothers lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The w...”

“Women shouldn't be in combat," said Vorkosigan, grimly glum. "Neither should men, in my opinion.”

“I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce.”

“Water, water, water....There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount , a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing amo...”

“, Sunlight! The most precious gold to be found on Earth.”

“Id forgotten how enlivening it could feel, seeing clearly and far. Aridity frees light. It also unleashes grandeur. The earth here wasnt cloaked in forest, nor draped in green. Green was pastoral, ...”

“The number of people killed by the sanctions in Iraq is greater than the total number of people killed by all weapons of mass destruction in all of history.”

“The slow, mismanaged arrival of armored vehicles and bulletproof plates for flak vests was only the most conspicuous demonstration of how the Iraq War, like every war -- just or unjust, won or lost...”

“I may have been in stage four, but I wasnt completely crazy. At least eighty-six journalists had been killed in Iraq, more than in any other conflict since World War II, and another thirty-eight ha...”