Harry Turtledove Quotes

There was, he remembered, far more to love than what went on in bed, but that had its place too.

Judah Benjamin said, "The nations of Europe continue to abhor our policy, try as we will to convince them that we cannot do otherwise. Mr. Mason has written from London that Her Majesty's government might well have been willing to extend us recognition two years ago, were it not for the continuation of slavery among us: so Lord Russell has assured him, at any rate. Mr. Thouvenel, the French foreign minister, has expressed similar sentiments to Mr. Slidell in Paris." Slavery, Lee thought. In the end, the world's outside view of the Confederate States of America was colored almost exclusively by its response to the South's peculiar institution. Never mind that the U.S. Constitution was a revocable compact between independent states, never mind that the North had consistently used its numerical majority to force through Congress tariffs that worked only to ruin the South. So long as black men were bought and sold, all the high ideals of the Confederacy would be ignored.

If they had lawyers instead of teeth, they’d be as bad as people.

Beauty didn’t last. Brains did.

They can't say anything against the government, not in public they can't." "Is it a country or a jail?" Carsten asked. "Near as I can tell, sir," the second yeoman said, "it's a jail.

There’s no such thing as glory, near as I can tell. If the machine guns didn’t kill it, the artillery did.

People you don't like are pigheaded. Your friends are stubborn, or hold to their purpose.

No, he hadn’t a clue. She studied him—perfect coif, perfect clothes, perfect confidence. Inside, where it didn’t show, she smiled a hunter’s smile. Perfect target.

“We’d never—” Alexander began, but he didn’t finish the sentence. When you were in a war, who could say what you might be driven to do?

Sometimes I think I don't know everything that's going on," Ulric Skakki said in tones full of mock self-pity. Count Hamnet reached out and set a consoling hand on his arm. "Don't worry about it. Sometimes I don't think you know what's going on, either.

Manicheism, n., The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.

Research seemed a more profitable way to spend his time than mourning.

Don’t do anything to make things worse was the eleventh commandment of the ghetto, at least as important as the original ten.

“You wouldn’t bring me fifty dollars. You’re too damn old and too damn uppity.”
“I can’t help being old, and I am proud to be uppity,” Douglass said.

Your deplorable taste in politics aside, you’re an intelligent man.