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Quotes from Southern Victory — Harry Turtledove

born 1949 United States

← All quotes by Harry Turtledove

243 quotes

He’d turned fifty-seven earlier in the year, and the past had a way of looking better and the present worse the older he got.

Southern Victory (1997)

Armstrong Grimes still had a lot to learn about being a soldier, but he understood shooting first and asking questions later.

Southern Victory (1997)

And now, just to prove how clever the elected rulers of the country were, they’d decided to reprise what hadn’t worked before.

Southern Victory (1997)

Like a lot of jailers, he was convinced the police who hunted down criminals couldn’t find a skunk if it was spraying their leg.

Southern Victory (1997)

War was rapidly doing what war did—making ugly everything it touched.

Southern Victory (1997)

When Cassius was optimistic about the way the fighting was going, he was often wrong; when he was pessimistic, he was always right.

Southern Victory (1997)

Radicals hire bomb-throwing maniacs. Rich men hire lawyers. They’re more expensive, but they ought to be, because they do more damage.

Southern Victory (1997)

He hated parliamentary procedure, but he’d started learning it anyhow, even if he did think it was only a way to cheat by the numbers.

Southern Victory (1997)

Longstreet, as far as Jackson was concerned, made a better politician than a soldier; he was full of the deviousness politics required.

Southern Victory (1997)

You have a fine stump speech there, Congresswoman, and I think you are sincere in it, but it doesn’t altogether match the way the world works.

Southern Victory (1997)

In a poker game, you were either a shark or you were bait.

Southern Victory (1997)

No one argued with him, which was a pleasant novelty.

Southern Victory (1997)

“Maybe we’ll get some use out of battleships in the next war after all.” He didn’t doubt there would be a next war; there would always be a next war.

Southern Victory (1997)

He truly did not seem to realize that terrorizing everyone who was not ardently on his side to begin with would ensure that he drew few new supporters.

Southern Victory (1997)

Where cool heads had failed, hotheads prevailed.

Southern Victory (1997)

Life was what you got, not what you expected.

Southern Victory (1997)

Every so often, though, the passing years up and ambushed him. They had more skill at it than any Yankees. One day, they would shoot him down from ambush, too.

Southern Victory (1997)

“You’re a Democrat, aren’t you general?” somebody asked.
“What sensible man isn’t?” Custer returned.

Southern Victory (1997)

I think this is called peace. We used to have it all the time.

Southern Victory (1997)

Yes, I know I haven’t told you anything. No offense, Sis, but you like running people’s lives so much, you don’t like it when they try and run their own.

Southern Victory (1997)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Harry Turtledove (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.