Shadow of the Giant

Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.

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.

Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they're telling the truth, there's always something hidden behind their words.

You don't want to give God the credit because you don't think he exists. But if you're going to blame him for all the crap, kid, you got to give him credit for what grows from that fertilized soil.

The child is mine and Petra's. It's especially important to us because it's the first we know of that definitely does not have my condition." "You mean it isn't ugly?

So the I.F. is spying on Earth." "Just as a mother spies on her children at play in the yard." "Good to know you're looking out for us, Mummy.

Mine mine mine. That was the curse and power of human beings—that what they saw and loved they had to have. They could share it with other people but only if they conceived of those people as being somehow their own. What we own is ours. What you own should also be ours. In fact, you own nothing, if we want it. Because you are nothing. We are the real people, you are only posing as people in order to try to deprive us of what God means us to have.

What about this? A colony of nothing but Battle School grads. If they bred true, they'd be the smartest military minds in the galaxy. Then they'd come home and take over Earth. OK, not that.

I don't care how loyal you think you're going to be Dink. It's not in you. You're a brat and you always will be. So admit what a lousy follower you are and go ahead and LEAD. -Petra

the cruelest, narrowest, most evil people will always rise to power because they'll always be the ones most willing to wrap themselves in the crescent flag and murder people in God's name.

That's the problem with Peter," said Theresa. "Only the one?" said Peter.

It was an unbroken network of causality leading back to the first human who wasn't a chimp. And farther back, to the coalescing of the planets around the sun. If you wish to call that God, go ahead.

You're not crazy. You're not evil. But you can't stop.

The emotion she could deal with best was anger.

Like Santa Claus. You adults pretend he doesn't exist, but we know that he really does.

Since I don't have actual authority over anybody, Petra, how can it possibly matter if I'm not legitimately authorized?

Nobody ever completely means what they say. Even when they think they’re telling the truth, there’s always something hidden behind their words.

How much time? Not as much as I had yesterday.

Pero la naturaleza de los subordinados era usar el poder de manera intrépida, ya que la culpa siempre podía achacarse tanto a los de abajo como a los de arriba.

Dar explicaciones a tus hombres no mengua el respeto que sienten por ti, sino que demuestra tu respeto por ellos.

It’s like communes—people with nothing are always willing to share.