A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.

If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back.

Do it for yourself. The universe will be around to collect its cut later.

Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.

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

One learns better than to hand one's choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns.

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