If you give orders and explain nothing, you might get obedience, but you'll get no creativity. If you tell them your purpose, then when your original plan is shown to be faulty, they'll find another way to achieve your goal. Explaining to your men doesn't weaken their respect for you, it proves your respect for them.

Quing-Jao: I am a slave to the gods, and I rejoice in it. Jane: A slave who rejoices is a slave indeed.

She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake. Even as a little girl she had said - to the consternation of her family - What kind of idiot was Eve, to believe a snake? But now she understood, for she had heard the voice of the snake and had watched as a wise and powerful man had fallen under its spell. Eat the fruit and you can have the desires of your heart. It's not evil, it's noble and good. You'll be praised for it. And it's delicious.

A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.

The only process you've mastered is the process of elimination, and the only reason you've mastered that is because you can do it in the toilet.

If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out.

Humanity does not ask to be happy.It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, and then happiness as we can manage it... Take what pleasure you can in the interstices of your work, , but your work is first, learning first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.