C. J. Cherryh Quotes

You know its shape, since you have it. Give it up, and be paid. Or don’t — and be paid, hani, be paid then too.

There was no hurry. There was nowhere in particular to go; and everywhere, of course. <> was now awake, lazily considering galactic motion and the likely center of that ancient supernova. Such star-deaths begat descendants.

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

He knew that he wielded magic as well as iron, and yet looked away from it, and made himself fables to explain his own presence in the world, and sought gods who might be more powerful than himself. It would be very comfortable if there were someone more powerful than himself, on this Road, on this particular morning, someone to guide him, even someone to blame....

Yes, ma’am,” he said, and folded his hands and stopped where he was, listening, waiting while a very sick woman tried to gather her faculties.
“First off, tell the dowager she’s a right damn bastard.”
It was no time for a translator to argue. Mitigation, however, was a reasonable tactic. “Aiji-ma, Sabin-aiji has heard our suspicions regarding Tamun and received assurances from me and Gin-aiji that we have not arranged a coup of our own. She addresses you with an untranslatable term sometimes meaning extreme disrepute, sometimes indicating respect for an opponent.”
Ilisidi’s mouth drew down in wicked satisfaction. “Return the compliment, paidhi.”
“Captain, she says you’re a right damn bastard, too.

But once out of Tabini's immediate presence the spell was broken, the excitement ebbed, and adrenaline was shifting from second-to-second performance to the raw fear that he had a human situation on his hands and that he'd given atevi far too much information.

Machigi had been practicing the old Momentum theory of leadership: start a war, keep everyone facing the enemy — and avoid discussing domestic problems for another decade.

The world was getting scary. That was the truth. And it was moving fast. And it wasn’t a good morning. Not at all.

"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...."

There was a certain wisdom in doing little, when one was obliged to act in ignorance.

God — had it happened? Was it true?
Had he just lost not only the words, but all the time between?
Or was this the greatest case of test anxiety in history?
God.

We value you,” she said. “Our compass. Our true lodestone of virtue.”
“One is glad of some usefulness, aiji-ma.” He was not comforted. The old spark had entered the dowager’s eye this morning, ever since that turn of events in the camp. Ilisidi in this mode was dangerous. Lethal.
And sometimes frighteningly honest. She reached out a hand and touched his arm.
“Protect the truth, paidhi-ji. Do not swerve from that. We wondered when, not if, you would come to consult us about the future.”
His face still burned.
“And what future, aiji-ma? One regrets not to know, but one has no understanding at all.”
“Nor will you. Nor can you. Nor can we. We will know when we see Tatiseigi.

He watched the desert slip under the airship's nose, and the land roughened into highlands over which he had traveled at great cost, in great pain - dreamlike, such speed, looking down on a world where time moved more slowly, where realities were different and immediate and he had learned for a time to live.

Clark. Superman. She loved two men. It was extraordinary how alike and how different they were.-Lois Lane

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.