Quotes from David Drake

History was a series of decisions about what to tell and a series of accidents about what survived after telling. Not truth, but a historian could search for truth, and the search was as worthy as any other human activity.

Nothing's boring if it's in your soul…

Her sanity was perhaps an unwarranted assumption.

As my Uncle Theodosius always said: never chase women who are a lot smarter than you. You won't catch them, or, what's worse, you might.

Adventure is somebody else in deep shit, far, far away

First initiative, then life.

A good officer can get away with being wrong, but he can't be indecisive.

Arrogance wasn't the same thing as stupidity, but it tended to have similar results.

Logic wasn't the governing factor here. It rarely is in human affairs.

Lieutenant Daniel Leary ambled through the streets of Kostroma City in the black-piped gray 2nd Class uniform of the Republic of Cinnabar Navy. He was on his way to the Elector's Palace, but there was no hurry and really nothing more important for Daniel to do than to savor the fact that he'd realized one of his childhood dreams: to walk a far world and see its wonders first hand.

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned," "Gentlemen-Rankers," Barrack Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling

It's all right for a leader to be ruthless, Adele thought. He shouldn't be whimsical, though, and he especially shouldn't be whimsically ruthless.

Danger is another thing that's more romantic to read about than the reality of blood and burns and the screams transcending age and gender and even humanity. Pain can be a sound, pure sound, and pictures can't prepare you for the smell of a man trying to stuff his intestines back into his ripped abdomen.

Opposition to the current ruler doesn't make one a traitor to the state

Many times information was most effective when it wasn't used. The same was true of any other weapon.

The things other people said or did would always give room to take offense, if you were of a mind to take offense. Therefore the fault wasn't in the other people.

Dogs don't need philosophies, they just fight. It seems to me that men do the same, though they usually come up with reasons. Justice is a good one.

So long as authority comes only from having a hand on a throat, wisdom and mercy are a moot point.

A fire department isn't a waste of tax money, even if those assigned to it spend most of the time washing their cars.

She thought a smile that eventually touched her lips.

that was what being a Champion was all about: dealing with bullies who preyed on other people. Duke Ronald hadn't been a bad example of the type, but the whole breed had to be stopped. Otherwise people would grow up believing that if you had the strength to do it, you could take anything you wanted.

Without the rule of law there could be no safety and no progress: if you created something, somebody else might just take it away because they wanted it.

or cheaper.

the bathroom. Really, Mr. Colville