Steve Perry Quotes

If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.

What other paths were there? His studies had shown him that revolution and evolution were the only ways that societies ever truly changed. Revolution and evolution, built of a mix of education and violence and politics and compromise and self-interest and self-preservation. Certainly, history showed that rigid societies, like ancient dinosaurs, always died. The Confed was the biggest dinosaur ever, and while it was already dying and had been doing so for a long time, it would take many years before it finally fell. Any empire which had to hold its citizens in check with military force was far down the road to destruction. Which brought up another thought: what would replace the dead beast when it began to rot? What parasite would emerge from the corpse to try and breed itself into superiority?

Never felt so alive as you did after you came out of a battle in one piece. And if you were dead? You wouldn’t feel that...

Honor was in surviving, not fair play.

Jo nodded. The Vastalimi were stoic about many things, death notwithstanding. People came and went, that was the way of it, and there was no need to be overly disturbed; nothing could be done to change the general pattern, only the individual ones. Everybody got onto the hoverbus, and eventually, everybody got off; the questions were, how long was the ride, and how did you leave?

Everybody’s got secrets, and some of the worst ones belong to those with the most power.

“You cheated!”
“Hell yes, I did. I learned a long time ago, better you learn to fight smarter, not harder.”
“If you had not had the pistol—”
“Then I’d have used some other tool. Knife, stick, a chair, whatever. Fighting fair gets you killed unless the other guy also fights fair and you are better than him and lucky. First rule: Don’t do it.

You’re not an ape, use a tool!

We of the Shroud tend to believe in teaching those things we know we can teach, and in affairs of the heart—or gonads—there are no real experts. Love, like zen, cannot be learned, only felt.

I'm sorry," he said. "I know it sucks."
"You didn't create it, you just pointed it out. If I thought shooting the messenger would fix it, you'd already be bleeding out.

There were, in Ferret’s experience, two kinds of law: one law ruled the poor, an altogether different one more gently guided the rich.

The rules are different for rich men," he said. "Always have been.

What had Von told him, so long ago? He might not be able to control what he felt or thought, but he could control what he did. That was the important thing, that was the crux of free will.

It would be foolish to deny something that worked simply because one did not know how it worked. One did not need an advanced degree in physics to push a button.

A priest."
Pen nodded. "A title. Our order concerns itself more with the redemption of man then the seeking of his Creator. Assuming there is such a thing."
"Doubts are good," Vaughn said. "If a belief can't stand questioning, it isn't apt to be much.