19 quotes
Hunting hawks do not belong in cages, no matter how much a man covets their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They are far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
He should be keeping reality and fantasy separate in his own mind, at least, even while mixing them as much as possible in others’.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
It’s never too late while you’re breathing.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
A mercenary who can’t honor his contract when it’s rough as well as smooth is a thug, not a soldier.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
That idea only makes sense if you don’t think too hard about it.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
What you are is a question only you can answer.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Not only was Ivan an idiot, but he generated a telepathic damping field that turned people nearby into idiots too.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
To kill a man, it helps if you can first take away his face. A neat mental trick. Handy for a soldier.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
In the long run more mercenaries have had their asses shot off by their contractors than by their enemies.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Some saw stars, it seemed, and some saw the spaces between them.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
I guess it just doesn’t look very heroic to sneak up behind somebody and shoot them in the back. I can’t help thinking it would be more efficient, though.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
How can I give you up? You’re the mountains and the lake, the memories—you have them all. When you’re with me, I’m at home, wherever I am.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Heroes. They sprang up around him like weeds. A carrier, he was seemingly unable to catch the disease he spread.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
I’ve got forward momentum. There’s no virtue in it. It’s just a balancing act. I don’t dare stop.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
You know, if you’re trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it’s a lot easier to hit your targets if you don’t yell going through the door.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
There was no way he could anticipate every contingency. When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
The deadly weapon seemed unnaturally light and easy in his hand. Something that lethal should have more heft, like a broadsword. Wrong, for murder to be so potentially effortless—one ought to at least have to grunt for it.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
Organization seemed to be the key. To get huge masses of properly matched men and material to the right place at the right time in the right order with the swiftness required to even grasp survival—to wrestle an infinitely complex and confusing reality into the abstract shape of victory—organization, it seemed, might even outrank courage as a soldierly virtue.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)
“Ivan, one of these days somebody is going to pull out a weapon and plug you, and you’re going to die in bewilderment, crying, ‘What did I say? What did I say?’”
“What did I say?” asked Ivan indignantly.
The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)