Harry Turtledove Quotes

American author (born 1949)

Harry Norman Turtledove (born June 14, 1949) is an American author who is best known for his work in the genres of alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and mystery fiction. He is a student of history and completed his PhD in Byzantine history. His dissertation was on the period 565–582. He lives in Southern California. In addition to his birth name, Turtledove writes under a number of pen names: Eric Iverson, H. N. Turteltaub, Dan Chernenko, and Mark Gordian. He began publishing novels in the realm of fantasy starting in 1979 and continues to write in the 2020s.

From: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: H. N. Turteltaub

Native Name: Harry Norman Turtledove

Alternative Names: Dan Chernenko • Eric G. Iverson • Mark Gordian • H.N. Turteltaub

From Wikidata (CC0)

It's not the way it was any more," he said, half to himself. "Nothing is the way it was anymore.

Whites are so mystified, they put race ahead of class.

They’d kill him or he’d kill them. War reduced everything to a brutal simplicity.

Anyone who forces something on someone and then says he will be better for it—you will, I hope, understand me when I say this is difficult to appreciate.

Anytime a politician said he wouldn’t beat around the bush, you were well advised to keep your hand on your wallet.

What's obvious," Morrell observed, "isn't always true.

Life is hard." Rodriguez shrugged. "And after life is done, then you die." He shrugged again. "What can anyone do?" It was a good question. It was, when Pinkard thought about it, a very good question. If there were any better questions out there, he had no idea what they might be. "You do the best you can, is all," he answered slowly, and then looked around at the hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere he was currently inhabiting. "If this here is the best I can do, I been doin' somethin' wrong up till now.

The newspapers extolled every skirmish as one Bonaparte would have admired (clumsy propaganda, in a province that had never reconciled itself to the French revolution), but anyone who believed all the newspapers said deserved nothing better than he got.

Something does stink down in Richmond. If we try to root it out now, we are liable to lose the war in the confusion that would follow. But if we don’t try to root it out, we are liable to lose the war from the confusion it causes.

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.

Any time you could split the difference between what you really wanted and what you would settle for, you weren’t doing too bad.

When Cassius was optimistic about the way the fighting was going, he was often wrong; when he was pessimistic, he was always right.

But destroying white privilege only boosted white fear.

He truly did not seem to realize that terrorizing everyone who was not ardently on his side to begin with would ensure that he drew few new supporters.

“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?