Those single-track military minds never think to ask their cleaning staff for help in giant lethal marauding creature matters.

The story is always better than your ability to write it.

Why do you tell me... so much?" Luthe considered her. "I tell you... some you need to know, and some you have earned the right to know, and some it won't hurt you to know--" He stopped.... "Some things I tell you only because I wish to tell them to you.

Mice are terribly chatty. They will chat about anything, and if there is nothing to chat about, they will chat about having nothing to chat about. Compared to mice, robins are reserved.

What we can do, we must do: we must use what we are given, and we must use it the best we can, however much or little help we have for the task. What you have been given is a hard thing--a very hard thing... But my darling, what if there were no one who could do the difficult things?

...there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.

I get a little cranky with the whole business about kids not having attention spans. This reminds me of the usual business of thinking that the next generation is hopeless. Every generation has said that about every younger generation.