74 quotes
No: the answer you like the most is the one you should trust the least. Go over the evidence one more time: be sure you haven’t missed something.
Fire with Fire (2013)
Zkhee’ah Drur the Elder had once observed that while one is yet alive to complain of misfortune, the greatest of all misfortunes has not yet occurred. But this turn of affairs seemed very close to disproving that ancient axiom.
Trial by Fire (2014)
These matters should incite more urgent investigation than the technology you arrogated from your attackers. But like most primitive cultures, your reflex is one of stimulus and response: to focus entirely on the issues and actions of the moment.
Marque of Caine (2019)
“Is Glamqoozht just a place name or does it mean something?”
“It translates imperfectly as Council Hub.”
Riordan was guardedly hopeful. “Sounds like it’s a place to get questions answered and decisions made.” Unless, of course, it was like human capitals.
Marque of Caine (2019)
I guess that, living in a sanitized world, you’ve forgotten this basic lesson: if you want to stay free or stay alive, never play by your opponent’s rules. Particularly when your opponent is more powerful than you are. Do the unexpected. Turn on your pursuer. Attack the attacker.
Marque of Caine (2019)
Riordan stared. “Your…media…really advertised things like, uh, canned vegetables named after mythical monsters?”
Paulsen shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe what our media did, on occasion.”
Caine's Mutiny (2017)
And here are the wages you must pay in order to climb the political ladder, you foolish sod. You’ve got to do the dirty work that others have ordered. I’ve done it out of dubious patriotism. Let’s see if you’ll do it out of blind ambition.
Caine's Mutiny (2017)
“You are a traitor to your own race, servitor.”
“No. I am its true servant, because the prerequisite of success is a ruthlessly clear understanding of reality, of the facts with which we must contend. Without that, all plans begin in error, and so, they must end in disaster.”
Trial by Fire (2014)
Riordan surveyed the scene again. Knowing that it could not be other than perfect made it seem less remarkable, much in the way a constructed vista in a theme park could never quite compare with a less perfect one discovered in nature. This was merely a technological achievement, and the price of its perpetual perfection was its inability to inspire a sense of grandeur.
Marque of Caine (2019)
“You think she’ll make it?”
“She should. Unless something else goes wrong.”
Tsaami’s tone was sour. “Caine: this is a battlefield. Something else always goes wrong.”
To which Riordan had no ready response. After all, Karam was right.
Caine's Mutiny (2017)
“Virodok!” exclaimed Sukhinin, who sounded short of breath. “Do you monsters hold nothing dear beyond yourselves?”
“No, we do not, and that is the source of our power: to reject the delusion that any human, anywhere, at any time, actually does anything or feels anything that they believe is not, at some level, in their own interest.”
Caine's Mutiny (2017)
Richard, we have fallen into the common trap of seeing ourselves at the center of the universe: all that goes on around us somehow has us as its subject and raison d’etre. But in reality, all the events, all the plans, all the acts we interpret as intentionally malign—or benign—to us may, in fact, have almost nothing to do with our species.
Trial by Fire (2014)
And over the many months that followed, as Caine crept through both terrestrial and alien undergrowth on missions to reclaim some of the autonomy humanity had lost, he learned and relearned the prime lesson in common to all the shocks:
That all assumptions, like all plans, or never more than a second away from a catastrophic collision with reality.
Marque of Caine (2019)
They still grumbled, of course, but never within his earshot. Besides, grumbling was the true anthem of every military unit that had ever existed. And their current grumbling was simply aimless grousing about the food, the cramped quarters, and anything else that struck them as modestly annoying. It was, in summary, both a harmless and timeless bonding ritual.
Caine's Mutiny (2017)