If war's first victim is truth, its second is clerical efficiency.

One's ribs shouldn't be prison bars.

A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living.

Oh, diplomacy ... it mops up war's spillages; legitimizes its outcomes; gives the strong state the means to impose its will on a weaker one, while saving its fleets and battalions for weightier opponents.

I really wish they hadn't made the set out of asbestos.

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.

Better a soulless clone... than a souled roach.