Steve Perry

Just because somebody or something doesn’t look at the world the way you do doesn’t mean it’s stupid. It’s just different—

— Steve Perry

We of the Shroud tend to believe in teaching those things we know we can teach, and in affairs of the heart—or gonads—there are no real experts. Love, like zen, cannot be learned, only felt.

— Steve Perry

Older doesn’t necessarily mean wiser, Emile, but it does mean older. More...experienced. More adept at dealing with the galaxy, at...taking care of oneself.

— Steve Perry

Khadaji only nodded. It didn’t matter to him if he passed the test or not. He wasn’t here to get a degree; he was here to learn.

— Steve Perry

“People, this is your weapon, not your gun.” He waved the Parker in the air. “This is for work.” He dropped one hand to touch himself on the crotch. “This is for fun. Don’t mistake one for the other. Those of you not male or electively equipped as such might remember that easier.”

— Steve Perry

The beast has long since stopped serving to become the master. The Confed did what governments were famed for: it made more government. To oppose it was treason, and worth death. Even a monster has fear.

— Steve Perry

He thought about the killing he’d seen, about his final participation in the slaughter on Maro. It still made him want to vomit, the thought of all those people ceasing to exist. Many religions had it that there was another life, another existence following the one known, but Khadaji held no faith in that idea. Maybe so, maybe not. It would be nice, but until it was proven, a person should make the best of his or her time on the physical plane.

— Steve Perry

Could he use the same excuse as the Confed—the end justified the means? Sometimes it did, of course, but could one ethically justify using the same methods as a deplored enemy, in order to get it to stop?

— Steve Perry

Of course, laws weren’t always just. Some rules outlawed a thing because it was intrinsically bad: child molestation, say. Other rules made harmless activities crimes only because someone wished them to be so. Take cohabitation on a religious holiday. On some worlds, it was legal on one day, illegal the next, and on the third, okay once again. Khadaji could see no moral dilemma there.

— Steve Perry

Rich people seldom run amok; They hire somebody to do that for them.

— Steve Perry

Young soldiers had a lot of expectations and fantasies about how it would be and what they would do and feel. Invariably wrong, those expectations.

— Steve Perry

It wasn’t a death wish. It was a see-how-close-you-can-get-and-live wish.

— Steve Perry

Truth is the first casualty in war, but communications is the second.

— Steve Perry

If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.

— Steve Perry

There are a lot of promises in the recycle bins of history.

— Steve Perry

Nobody is a born killer. And nobody ever forgets the first time they get laid, nor the first time they spike somebody.

— Steve Perry

“Everybody knows that.”“Assume for a moment that everybody is wrong.”

— Steve Perry

In the land of the unarmed, the man with a rock was king.

— Steve Perry

“One who searches for the definition ‘devious’ can find it listed under ‘human.’”

— Steve Perry

“You cheated!”“Then I’d have used some other tool. Knife, stick, a chair, whatever. Fighting fair gets you killed unless the other guy also fights fair and you are better than him and lucky. First rule: Don’t do it.

— Steve Perry

Shoot at us, we will nuke you all and let God sort out your radioactive dust.

— Steve Perry

“You ready to fly, Nancy?” Jo asked.“I been shot at. Not a problem if they don’t hit me. I am allowed to dodge, right?”

— Steve Perry

Never felt so alive as you did after you came out of a battle in one piece. And if you were dead? You wouldn’t feel that...

— Steve Perry

“Why would he do that?”“Because he is insane, a fool, a man so devious they will have to guard his corpse after he dies, or he’ll steal it himself!”

— Steve Perry

Droc was not particularly religious himself. If the gods responded to entreaties, they had never demonstrated it to him. Better his time was spent doing something that might work.

— Steve Perry

Death came for all, and it was never a matter of “if,” only “when.”

— Steve Perry

When he saw me look her over, he hinted that she might be willing to, ah, stay behind and work out details of the contract with me personally, no matter how long it might take.”Jo nodded. No surprise there. Sex had sold stuff ever since stuff had been around.

— Steve Perry

But was it not you who used to tell me that the more you knew, the better? That knowledge was the sharpest fang?

— Steve Perry

The good old days always seemed better in distant memory than they had actually been at the time.

— Steve Perry

Desire, she realized, was a thick fog that could completely obscure reality.

— Steve Perry

You’re not an ape, use a tool!

— Steve Perry

Well. You were allowed to be young and stupid, when you were young and stupid, and if it didn’t do you in, you might get older and wiser.

— Steve Perry

“The rules are different for rich men,” he said. “Always have been.”

— Steve Perry

He understood the phenomenon, of how almost dying made you appreciate what life had to offer. And it was a potent drug, that feeling. Battle was not glorious. But surviving it? That was.

— Steve Perry

A large bomb obscures a lot of evidence.

— Steve Perry

“We aren’t looking for trouble.”“Doesn’t mean you won’t find it.”

— Steve Perry

“So here we have the basic ingredients in the art of distraction,” Gunny said to Singh, as they walked toward the rendezvous point. “When in doubt, wait until dark, turn off the lights, and blow shit up.”

— Steve Perry

What they don’t know won’t hurt us...

— Steve Perry

The loudest sound on a battle field was click! when you were expecting bang! It was a never-ending wonder: What was going to go wrong next?

— Steve Perry

“How interesting,” Kay said. “The human capacity for denial sometimes seems to be quite large.”“Ain’t that the truth.”

— Steve Perry

Old enough to look as if he knew what to do, young enough to look as if he could do it.

— Steve Perry

He had thought about it. Mostly, after the fantasies, he had let it go. It was done, history. No point in bumping into the furniture while looking back over your shoulder.

— Steve Perry

Jo nodded. The Vastalimi were stoic about many things, death notwithstanding. People came and went, that was the way of it, and there was no need to be overly disturbed; nothing could be done to change the general pattern, only the individual ones. Everybody got onto the hoverbus, and eventually, everybody got off; the questions were, how long was the ride, and how did you leave?

— Steve Perry

When you worked in a profession whose tools included guns and bombs, death was always on the menu; only a matter of time until the order you placed arrived...

— Steve Perry

“Man proposes, God disposes,” Singh said.Both fems looked at him. He shrugged. “Whenever you run into a situation that you cannot control, we on Ananda often find it convenient to blame it on God.”

— Steve Perry

War had a way of making carpe diem seem valid no matter what you wanted to seize...

— Steve Perry

The injury that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance.

— Steve Perry

Why is it people like us have to be the galaxy’s conscience?”“If you can see a problem, and you have the ability to fix it, it becomes your responsibility. It’s always been that way.”

— Steve Perry

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it sucks.”“You didn’t create it, you just pointed it out. If I thought shooting the messenger would fix it, you’d already be bleeding out.”

— Steve Perry

Okay, I need to go places and shoot people.

— Steve Perry