Too late, he recalled Miles's dictum that the reward for a job well done was usually a harder job.

If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also?

The world is made by the people who show up for the job.

It's an ancient and honorable term for the final step in any engineering project. Turn it on, see if it smokes.

History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.

I'm sorry. I can love you. I can grieve for you, or with you. I can share your pain. But I cannot judge you.

Any communitys arm of force - military, police, security - needs people in it who can do necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity.