Is that all he wants?" McCready wondered. "Shuffling papers in an office, forever? - Poul Anderson

Man does not live by bread alone, nor guns, paperwork, theses, naked practicalities.

What I’m trying to make you know, not in your forebrain but in your marrow, is that reality never conforms very well to the textbooks, and sometimes it doesn’t conform at all.

Lord, that war was crazy!"
"All wars are," said Drummond dispassionately. "but technology advanced to the point of giving us a knife to cut our throats with. Before that, we were just beating our heads against the wall. Robinson, we can't go back to the old ways. We've got to start on a new track—a track of sanity.