Don’t you find that predators are those who most often assert absolute rights to personal freedoms? - Sheri S. Tepper

if a being has sufficient sense of justice and civility to know it has done wrong, knowing it has done wrong is often sufficient punishment. If the being has no remorse, punishment will only increase its anger.

The practice of diplomacy, I have found, is sometimes like eating soup with a fork: much activity yielding little nourishment.

the child’s life had allowed few if any illusions, and she already had an adult awareness that planning and happening were quite different things.