Quotes About Conflict

Emotionally she's a garage full of cats on fire.

Naughty business, this Empire.

War is not a state of being. It is meant to be a temporary chaos between periods of peace. Some want it to be the course of things: a default fact of existence.

No, I just mean … I'm not into … this." "This?" Her scowl deepens and her teeth bare. "Aliens?" "Women." "Oh. Oh. " "Yes, oh." "Oh.

I want soldiers who hate what they had to do and fear having to ever do it again." "And if that means we lose the war?" "Then we lose the war by keeping ourselves." That

A fully-realized and known world is also a boring world. Mystery, alongside conflict, is another of those  vital vittles that feeds the reader and keeps them hooked. Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason, I say -- so leave lots of questions.

Conflict is the food that feeds the reader. It's a spicy hell-broth that nourishes.

Good story thrives on protagonists in pain.

He can punch a gobbo so hard the thing erupts into a rain of gobbo guts, but standing in line at the bank gives him the shivering shits. Interacting with Snakefaces? Fine. Talking to real people? Jesus fuck. The

That's humanity. That's people. I got mine, you can't have any of it, and if you even look at me sideways I'll put a bullet in you.

War is not a state of being. It is meant to be a temporary chaos between periods of peace. Some want it to be the course of things: a default fact of existence. But I will not let that be so.

No, no, I know, it's just—you know, I thought . . ." "Because I have Syrian heritage I hate the Jews?" "When you put it like that, I'm pretty sure I'm a dumb-ass.

The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.

He knows how war goes. It's not many wars, but just one, drawn out again and again, cut up into slices so it seems more manageable.

It's like some real Romeo and Juliet business, except like, if Romeo and Juliet sucked really really bad.

Maybe that's the problem with generations. You start to forget what it was like when you were like them, so they become your enemy and you become theirs and nobody understands each other. Then you die and they become you and finally, finally they understand, but by then it's too late.

It's all elbows, Paul. Death and elbows.

Of course, Admiral Ackbar is a student of history, and in many cases smaller, lesser forces have outmatched and outfoxed their betters. The Ghostfinder fleet versus the Sith armada. The Mandalorians versus the Grand Army of the Republic. And, of course, the Rebel Alliance versus the Empire. History

I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war.

This was the fall of 2004. The wider world was deeply fucked, and home also. Two American wars raging—bloodbaths each, bloodbath major and bloodbath minor, ugly, squirrelly hateful clandestine wars marked by betrayal, incompetence and corruption. Don't get me started.

That's sort of what happened with Cassie and me. I guess I was Goya, just doing my thing, and she was the French Revolution.

There is, I came to realize, what the mind wants and what the body wants. The mind can excite the body, but its desires can also be false; whereas the body, the animal, wants what it wants.

I discovered I could hate her a bit, and because I didn't tell her so, because our friendship went along on this reduced, part-time scale that didn't allow for arguments, there was no noticeable change in our relationship.

Never let the sun go down on an argument," she said. "Because one of us might die in the night," I said, as I'd replied since I was small. But this time, she laughed, a dry, sad laugh. "One of us just might, Mouse.