Quotes from Jack Campbell

I need to stop getting into situations where all my options are potentially bad.

You can't win unless you try to win, but you can lose by trying not to lose.

There are things we don't do. From this moment forth, let us all ensure our every action reflects well on us and our ancestors. Let us live to the highest standards, lest we win this war only to find ourselves staring in the mirror at the face of our late enemy.

Humanity's gift to the universe. Duct Tape.

From the stars we came, and to the stars we return.

He felt the comfort of being part of an eternal cycle symbolized by the gold strips on either side of the black mourning band he wore. Light, dark, light. The dark was just an interval.

Fast and stupid is still stupid. It just gets you to stupid a lot quicker than humans could on their own. Which, I admit, is an accomplishment, she added, because we're pretty damn good at stupid.

Security is not a license for people in authority to hide the tactics they would never openly admit to using.

Her hand gripped his, and even amid the fear and danger he marveled at the feeling that came with the contact. If we die holding hands in this way, will we enter the next dream together?

What are you going to do for fun if you can't devastate planets anymore? I'll have to find another hobby, I guess.

Deplorable practices adopted during the last century were repeatedly declared necessary if regrettable in order to win the war. Oddly enough, we've yet to win. You'd think somebody would have asked before this why the regrettable but necessary measures haven't actually produced the promised results.

Sagas wouldn't be interesting if terrible things didn't happen to the people in them.

Oh, by the way, you left out one step in the plan. What step was that? The one where we pray this works, Admiral.

The longstanding thorn in your side Captain Numos is stupid. In fact, Numos is so dense that I'm surprised he doesn't have his own event horizon.

We should have suspected that nonhumans were involved right from the start when the activation process didn't involve a lot of arcane commands that had to be done in just the right order, and the destination was displayed as a name rather than using some counterintuitive code. No human software engineer would produce a device that easy to use.

people didn't fight for grand causes or great purposes, but for the closest and most personal of reasons. They might say the fought for high ideals, but in practice they fought for the comrades beside them and their loved ones at home.

I respect you far too much to think that empty pride is the only motivator you could call on. I think what you call pride is something much more than that. Belief in yourselves, perhaps, or perseverance in the face of adversity. Those are things to be proud of. That's not the same as being proud.

How many dragons does a girl have to slay to get some respect around here?

Data that conflicts with beliefs is often ignored

anyone who really believed what they were saying could get it said in a lot fewer words.

If the people of Old Earth, our ancestors and their descendants today who remain, could keep building, could keep trying, how can we do less? We are their children, and while we bought to the stars with us all the faults and the problems and the flaws of the past, we also bought the good things, the determination, and the willingness to help others, and the imagination to build things greater then every shortcoming humanity has ever known.

You know, like that old Catch 42 expression that stands for the meaning of life is that in the end you always get screwed.

Sir, winning is usually a matter of making one less mistake than the enemy or just getting up one more time than you get knocked down.

Fine." Desjani sighed. "Admiral, I recommend we get our intelligence officer up here to see if he can craft lovely poems for the singing spider wolves.