C. J. Cherryh

“Jane leaned back against the counter and stared at the ceiling. At the traditional location of God, no matter what the planet.”

“If you're up against a smart opponent, make him think himself to death.”

“Trade isn't about goods. Trade is about information. Goods sit in the warehouse until information moves them.”

“Average people didn't analyze what they thought: they thought they thought, and half of it was gut reaction.”

“Inevitably the party trying to resolve a matter had to contend with the party most willing to exploit it.”

“For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction.”

“Poisoning rarely happens in a well-managed kitchen.”

“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.”

““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.””

“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.”

““I frankly doubt that.”“Ah. That is your privilege. But doubt doesn’t alter fact, sir.””

“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.”

“At this point I ceased argument with Lt. Goforth and shot him in the belly.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I've seen how other writers have approached the relationships in the Arthurian cycle in this century, and it does seem to me that while some of the characters get treated fairly, others do not. And the point is, it's one of those kinds of legends in which no one is totally wrong, not even Mordred. It presents a collision of necessities, and Mordred has his own political reality.”