violence

War's weird.

Someone had fiddled when he should have faddled, and a nuclear weapon had gone off … and one hellish big one, from the look and the feel.

"I don't trust anybody's nostalgia but my own. Nostalgia is a product of dissatisfaction and rage. It's a settling of grievances between the present and the past. The more powerful the nostalgia, the closer you come to violence. War is the form nostalgia takes when men are hard-pressed to say something good about their country."

"Violence," came the retort, "is the last refuge of the incompetent.

You're what they call a man of peace, aren't you?" "I suppose I am. At least, I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end. There are always better substitutes, though they may sometimes be a little less direct."

'Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.'

'Safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation …'

"As the crew had predicted," said Rumfoord, "the lieutenant-colonel was spoiled forever as a soldier. He became hopelessly engrossed in the intricate tactics of causing less rather than more pain. Proof of his success would be his winning of the woman's forgiveness and understanding.

Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one's conscience to get in the way.

We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and in cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.

I command you, as your superior officer: Stand up!" "Anything else you would like?" asks Tjaden. "Will you obey my order or not?" Tjaden replies, without knowing it, in the well-known classical phrase. At the same time he ventilates his backside. "I'll have you court-martialled," storms Himmelstoss.