I reflected that a little taste of power could take a reasonably sensible person and make some kind of groveling, cringing thing of him. - Sheri S. Tepper

Warriors are those who desire battle more than peace. Those who seek battle despite peace. Those who thump their spears on the group and talk of honor. Those who leap high in the battle dance and dream of glory....

The good of dead warriors, Mother, is that they are dead.

We're so old that the winds of age echo along our ribs and pick at our eye sockets. We could be gone tomorrow. A chill, say, or a little slip on the cliff side. I feel as fragile as a dried flower. I rattle a little in the moving air, but I'm only coherent dust-a shape of what once was. My essence is going.

“The Gentherans said too many Earthians were in fact barbarians who didn’t care what happened to Earth because they believed they’d be off in some lovely afterlife by that time.”
“Would they be?” I asked, wonderstruck this idea.
“I sincerely doubt it,” Mother snapped.