Quotes from Karen Traviss

the best way to stop worrying about your inevitable demise is to dwell on it morbidly until you're so bored that you forget it.

You never have perfect knowledge in combat, gentlemen. It's what we call the fog of war. You can either sit around worrying what's real and what's not, or you can realize the enemy hasn't got a clue either and fire off a few rounds of psychology. A truly great army is one that only has to rattle its saber to win a war.

I don't know who the good guys are anymore. But I do know what the enemy is. It's the compromise of principles. You lose the war when you lose your principles. And the first principle is to look out for your comrades.

Humans would never tell the simple truth when a lie was available....

People who wouldn't dream of drowning a puppy in a barrel full of water think nothing of killing a fish the same slow way.

I refuse to believe that gods want to make mortals unhappy and torment them. That's what humans do. And humans are very definitely not divine.

We have complete choice as individuals: the only decisions we can take are our own. And yet so many species use the state of being an individual as an excuse for inaction, helplessness and irresponsibility.No situation is so overwhelming that action is pointless. Targassat of Surang.

Armor does not make a Mandalorian. The armor is simply a manifestation of an impenetrable, unassailable heart.

So you want a knife, a nice sharp knife. You hone that blade to its limits. It even cuts through stone when you want it to. It saves your life. And then you're outraged when it cuts you accidentally. You see, knives don't switch off. And neither do people, not when you hone them to a fine edge.

All ships... we are now at battle stations. I expect this will now be known as the Second Battle of Fondor.

It's entirely possible that the Jedi's increasingly clouded vision was the result of their own moral degeneration. They'd let so many of their principles slip that the reason they couldn't see the dark side was so close to them was the lack of sharp contrast with themselves, like trying to see a gray nerf in fog. They turned off the light themselves. —Bardan Jusik, former Jedi Knight Kyrimorut

Everything Jacen did to grab power was within the law. There's law, and there's justice, and sometimes they're not the same thing.

Why doesn't the fact that I'm human matter to human beings

When wars end, all the shit comes tumbling out. People talk, point fingers at each other, reveal things they've kept quiet for years.

And knowing my luck Ã¢â'¬Â¦ that'll be the Engineer sign for "Your mom's a skank.

It's hard to send someone to their death," she said, answering his silent question. His expression was hidden behind the visor of his helmet. She didn't need to call on any of her abilities as a Jedi to know what he was thinking: one day she would do the same to men like him. The realization caught her unawares. "You'll get used to it," he said. She doubted it.

It crossed her mind that she might be saving clone soldiers from death by biological agent so they could die from blaster and cannon round. It was a horrible thought.

Covering his tracks by randomizing his route back to the apartment had become routine for Skirata now, which was a bizarre irony in itself.

I fail to understand why gethes (Humans), talk about individuals versus society. They are the same thing. The action of every individual counts, and those individual acts of personal responsibility accumulate to create society. Snowflakes are equally blind to their role in causing avalanches.

As a writer, I have a moral deal with you, the reader - if I hook you with a story, my part of the deal is to follow through and give you a satisfying outcome.

It was an ethical choice between rules or lives, and rules didn't always translate into what was right.

They said the world was divided into those folks who ran away from danger, and those who ran toward it.

I know genes are a big deal, son, but they're not the be-all and end-all. Rob slowed to a halt at the lights, wishing the dickhead behind would back off. If they were, you'd be in a seafood salad and I'd be in prison.

Hope was evil. It seduced you, then it dropped you on your ass so hard and so fast that you were worse off than when you started.