Quotes from Joe Haldeman

I think I would have been a writer, anyhow, in the sense of having written a story every now and then, or continued writing poetry. But it was the war experience and the two novels I wrote about Vietnam that really got me started as a professional writer.

You'd have to put yourself back in the 1960s to understand how separate from the mainstream of American life soldiers felt themselves to be, because we knew that students and others were demonstrating pretty violently against what we were doing.

I die. Before I die my body turns hair-side-in. People come from everywhere to see the insides of themselves. But the sight makes them lose the will, and all die. O the embarrassment.

You couldn't blame it all on the military, though. The evidence they presented for the Taurans' having been responsible for the earlier casualties was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored. The fact was, Earth's economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it. The

I die. O my hair falls out and my flesh rots and my bones are cracked by the hungry ta!a'an. He drops me behind him all around the forest and nothing will grow where his excrement from my marrow falls. As the years pass the forest dies from the poison of my remains. The soil washes into the sean and poisons the fish and all die. O the embarrassment.

I die. I breathe in and breahe in and cannot exhale. I explode all over my friends. They forget my name and pretend it is dung. They wash off in the square and the well becomes polluted. All die. O the embarrassment.

This is embarrassing. I uh, die and, um the last breath from my lungs is a terrible acid. It melts the seaward wall of the city and a hurricane comes and washes it away. All die. O the embarrassment -You're much better at that than he was.

I die. I,uh, have a terrible fever in my head and it gets hotter and hotter and hotter until my head is a fire, a forge, a star. I set the world on fire and everybody dies. O the embarrassment.

I die. My footprints are cursed. I walk around the village not knowing that all who cross where I have been will stay in estrous zero and bear no young. Eventually all die. O the embarrassment.

Unele rani sunt prea mari pentru a fi cusute. Trebuie sa le lasi deschise si sa le protejezi pana ce peste ele creste alta piele. Dar noua piele nu are terminatii nervoase normale, te tine in viata, dar amortit.

Well, there's always Nevada," Benny said. "You can buy anything from a hand laser to an atom bomb there.

We had just herded them up and slaughtered them, the first encounter between mankind and another intelligent species.

We're headed for Aleph-7. Panty raid. New slang term for the type of operation whose main object was to gather Tauran artifacts, and prisoners if possible. I tried to find out where the term came from, but the one explanation I got was really idiotic.

Think of it as a parallel universe. But maybe it's the real one, and we're in a dream.

Don't worry about that, Man, just make out my ticket.

Have you had your first baby yet? I might have one myself, once they find a way for the man to carry it around the first nine months.

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled; Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your glory bed, Or to victory.

War is the province of danger and therefore courage above all things is the first quality of a warrior, von Clausewitz maintained.

Most of human history had been industry versus nature, with industry winning.

the Aleph-Null campaign.

But I decided that buying the gift was more for me than for her, anyhow. A commercial kind of substitute for prayer.

She said she promised her mother that she would never drink a drop of wine. That was the drop she never drank.

But I remember another image from Earth: the rich dark green grass that grew in graveyards.

That meant that he'd drunk too much too early, and had popped an Alcoterm to burn it off.