12 quotes
What they had talked themselves into, they could be silent out of.
Use of Weapons (1990)
What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn’t lead to wisdom? And what’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?
Use of Weapons (1990)
“You’re a wicked man.”
“Thank you. It’s taken years of diligent practice.”
Use of Weapons (1990)
There are no gods, we are told, so I must make my own salvation.
Use of Weapons (1990)
“These people have successfully incorporated a belief in your martial prowess into their religion; how can you deny them?”
“Believe me, it would be easy.”
Use of Weapons (1990)
He suspected the troops felt closer to somebody who spoke a different language but asked them questions than they did to somebody who shared their language and only ever used it to give orders.
Use of Weapons (1990)
The youth was a cretin, and didn’t even realize that he was.
He could think of no more disastrous combination.
Use of Weapons (1990)
In all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.
Use of Weapons (1990)
“Well,” he sighed to no one in particular, and looked up into yet another alien sky. “Here we are again.”
Use of Weapons (1990)
Such a stupid act. Sometimes heroics revolted him; they seemed like an insult to the soldier who weighed the risks of the situation and made calm, cunning decisions based on experience and imagination, the sort of unshowy soldiering that didn’t win medals but wars.
Use of Weapons (1990)
“Let’s waste a little time, hmm?”
“A nice euphemism, sir,” she mused distantly.
He smiled. “Come and help me think of better ones.”
She smiled and they both looked at each other.
There was a long pause.
Use of Weapons (1990)
He would give up then, and console himself with something she’d said: that you could not love what you fully understood. Love, she maintained, was a process, not a state. Held still, it withered. He wasn’t too sure about all that; he seemed to have found a calm clear serenity in himself he hadn’t even known was there, thanks to her.
Use of Weapons (1990)