C. J. Cherryh Quotes
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A warrior is free to be a hero and pull off daring do and the soldier is irresponsible if he does it.
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Deal with the Devil if the Devil has a constituency - and don't complain about the heat.
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Trade isn't about goods. Trade is about information. Goods sit in the warehouse until information moves them.
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Poisoning rarely happens in a well-managed kitchen.
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For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction.
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Change happened and you thought it was forever, and immediately there were all the enemies of that change making common cause and meeting in the cloakrooms.
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She was a student of history, valued the lessons of it. The worst atrocities began with half-measures, with apologies, compromising with the wrong side, shrinking from what had to be done.
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What happened this far remote would have little political impact on Earth. What the visual media could not carry into living rooms, the general public could not long remain exercised about. Statistically, a majority of the electorate could not or did not read complicated issues; no pictures, no news; no news, no event.
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Honor to the earth," the abbot said, "honor to the dead in the passing of the year; honor to the living, in the coming of the new. A Great Year passes tonight. A new one begins. Let the good that is old continue and let the rest perish.
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Culture is how biology responds and makes its living conditions better.
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The warrior may fight for gold or for an immediate gain, or for something to take home for the winter to feed the family. The soldier is part of a more complex society. He's fighting for a group ethic of some sort.
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People ask where writers get ideas.Take my advice. Some cool, clear night, drive to a country place where city lights don’t block your view. Turn off the car lights. Get out and look up. And see our real neighborhood.
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There are three kinds of people I've found: those who think the universe is good, those who believe it's corrupt, and those who don't want to think about it any more than they can help. I prefer the first two.
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'I frankly doubt that.''Ah. That is your privilege. But doubt doesn’t alter fact, sir.'
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Average people didn't analyze what they thought: they thought they thought, and half of it was gut reaction.
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Inevitably the party trying to resolve a matter had to contend with the party most willing to exploit it.
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'You’ve behaved very highhandedly, Captain Mallory. Is that the custom out here?''The custom is, sir, that those who know a situation handle it and those who don’t watch and learn, or get out of the way.'
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Jane leaned back against the counter and stared at the ceiling. At the traditional location of God, no matter what the planet.
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There are certain myths that have persisted throughout the ages, and this one has remained very potent in modern culture. The Arthurian cycle involves numerous kinds of relationships, not only between men but also between men and women. In our rather less structured society nowadays defining these relationships can sometimes be difficult.
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Things whispered here, and the trees muttered with the wind and perhaps with other things. Men knew the place was old, old as the world, and they never made peace with it.
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I most fear stupid people. Stupid people will do anything. Truly smart people will do only what is logical for them to do.
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If you're up against a smart opponent, make him think himself to death.
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Remember, constantly, that when you talk about 'tense of a subjunctive,' you're not talking about time. You're slipping through degrees of reality.
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At this point I ceased argument with Lt. Goforth and shot him in the belly.