Forward momentum only worked as a strategy if one had correctly identified which way was forward.

Miles clutched Quinn's elbow. "Don't Panic." "I'm not panicking," Quinn observed, "I'm watching you panic. It's more entertaining .

Cecil flashed a grin. "Quite. Plus your rather irritating habit of treating your superior officers as your, ah..." Cecil paused, apparently groping again for just the right word. "Equals?" Miles hazarded. "Cattle," Cecil corrected judiciously.

If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.

Oh, was that liquor of yours a stimulant?" asked Elena. "I wondered why he didn't fall asleep." "Couldn't you tell?" chuckled Mayhew. "Not really." Miles twisted his head to take in Elena's upside-down worried face, and smile in weak reassurance. Sparkly black and purple whirlpools clouded his vision. Mayhew's laughter faded. "My God," he said hollowly, "you mean he's like that all the time?

The most important thing about quests, he decided, was not in finding what you went looking for, but in finding what you never could have imagined before you ventured forth.

An honor is not diminished for being shared.