c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Conviction rates in the military are pathetic, with most offenders going free AND THERE IS NO RECOURSE FOR APPEAL! The military believes the Emperor has his clothes on, even when they are down around his ankles and he is coming in the woman's window with a knife! Military juries give low sentences or clear offender's altogether. Women can be heard to say “it's not just me” over and over. Men may get an Article 15, which is just a slap on the wrist, and doesn't even follow them in their career. This is hardly a deterrent. The perpetrator frequently stays in place to continue to intimidate their female victims, who are then treated like mental cases, who need to be discharged. Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up charges; isolation and transfer are common, as are court ordered psychiatric referrals that label the women as lying or incompatible with military service because they are “Borderline Personality Disorders” or mentally unbalanced. I attended many of these women, after they were discharged, or were wives of abusers, from xxx Air Force Base, when I was a psychotherapist working in the private sector. That was always their diagnosis, yet retesting tended to show something different after stabilization, like PTSD.
— Diane Chamberlain, Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders
There is strong. There is Army Strong. And then there is Army Wife Strong.
— Aditi Mathur Kumar, Soldier and Spice - An Army Wife's Life
Everyday US Marines make possible the impossible and then go about their business like it's just the way things are supposed to be.
— Mark W. Boyer
The principle of compulsory service, embodied in the system of conscription, lias been the means by which modem dictators and military gangs have shackled their people after a coup d'état, and bound them to their own aggressive purposes. In view of the great service that conscription has rendered to tyranny and war, it is fundamentally shortsighted for any liberty-loving and peace-desiring peoples to maintain it as an imagined safeguard, lest they become the victims of the monster they have helped to preserve.
— B.H. Liddell Hart, The Revolution in Warfare
Apparently officers are not ‘men’. Officers are ‘officers’.
— Aditi Mathur Kumar, Soldier and Spice - An Army Wife's Life
Every marriage that ends in divorce; every serviceman who kills him- or herself; and every time a young warrior experience substance abuse issues, we witness a casualty of war.
— Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava
During the war some of the country’s sharpest minds had looked as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards.
— Sara Sheridan, London Calling
The costs of military service are substantial. Many costs are readily apparent; others are less apparent but no less important. Among the most pervasive and potentially disabling consequences of these costs is the threat to the psychological health of our nation's fighting forces, and their families, and their survivors. -- Department of Defense Task Force, 2007
— Jay Kopelman
If you have to fight old enemies, you should do it with your own old soldiers.
— Marius C.
There’s nothing like a military man, even out of uniform.
— Sara Sheridan, London Calling
An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.
— Alexander the Great
He who is ready to die for his country is a fool. For he didn’t choose where he was born
—  and where he was born didn’t choose him.
During Basic, sometimes you're so tired you can't even get up to piss. You're pushed beyond whatever limits you had set for yourself. You realize that your body can do things that you never imagined. But there are times when you don't think you can go on, and that's when your brother is there to lift you up and push you forward. He yells encouragement when the drill sergeant's yelling obscenities. You know that if you're ever caught by the enemy, your brothers will never stop looking for you. If you're hurt they'll help heal you. The Corps is a unit of many, not one, but dozens, thousands even, who have your back. You can smite one Marine, but a thousand will rose up to avenge him.
— Jen Frederick, Unspoken
You have no idea how much it contributes to the general politeness and pleasantness of diplomacy when you have a little quiet armed force in the background
— George F. Kennan
Composure and self-restraint were not only desirable characteristics in a woman, they were essental.As my mother put it later, it was bad enough having to worry yourself sick every time your husband went up in an airplane; now, she was being told, she was also supposed to feel responsible if his plane crashed. Anger and discontent, lest they kill, were to be kept to oneself. The military, even more so than the rest of society, clearly put a premium on well-behaved, genteel, and even-tempered women.
— Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Permission to shoot the fucker in the face when it comes over the rim?
— J. Fally, Bone Rider
He said: 'You don't understand. We never thought that we were being used to conquer people. Not at all: we thought the opposite. We were told that we were freeing those people. That is what they said—that we were going to set those people free from their bad kings or their evil customs or some such thing. We believed it because they believed it too. It took us a long time to understand that in their eyes freedom exists wherever they rule.
— Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace
The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor those who had lost their lives in service.Some of the tributes would be sincere and heartfelt, and some less so. But participating in the event, vowing undying support for the U.S. military, was an absolute must to maintain political viability. It was okay to vote to cut funds for veterans' healthcare, but don't dare miss a chance to jump on the Memorial Day bandwagon.
— David Rosenfelt, Unleashed
There are no veterans, only survivors.
— Rick H. Blase
A soldier is a killer painted hero.
— Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Where are your free and compulsory schools? Does every one know how to read in the land of Dante and of Michael Angelo? Have you made public schools of your barracks? Have you not, like ourselves, an opulent war-budget and a paltry budget of education? Have not you also that passive obedience which is so easily converted into soldierly obedience? military establishment which pushes the regulations to the extreme of firing upon Garibaldi; that is to say, upon the living honor of Italy? Let us subject your social order to examination, let us take it where it stands and as it stands, let us view its flagrant offences, show me the woman and the child. It is by the amount of protection with which these two feeble creatures are surrounded that the degree of civilization is to be measured. Is prostitution less heartrending in Naples than in Paris? What is the amount of justice springs from your tribunals? Do you chance to be so fortunate as to be ignorant of the meaning of those gloomy words: public prosecution, legal infamy, prison, the scaffold, the executioner, the death penalty? Italians, with you as with us, Beccaria is dead and Farinace is alive. And then, let us scrutinize your state reasons. Have you a government which comprehends the identity of morality and politics? You have reached the point where you grant amnesty to heroes! Something very similar has been done in France. Stay, let us pass miseries in review, let each one contribute in his pile, you are as rich as we. Have you not, like ourselves, two condemnations, religious condemnation pronounced by the priest, and social condemnation decreed by the judge? Oh, great nation of Italy, thou resemblest the great nation of France! Alas! our brothers, you are, like ourselves, Misérables.
— Victor Hugo
She oozes the kind of over-confidence that only comes to people who wear deep red lipstick and sparkly tissue sarees in bright daylight.
— Aditi Mathur Kumar, Soldier and Spice - An Army Wife's Life
...the weather was atrocious. A frightful storm burst upon us. We camped literally in water...To cap our woe, there was no means to light a single fire. We had to imagine dinner.
— Leonce Patry, The Reality of War: A Memoir of the Franco-Prussian War
We are all regular people, Pia,’ she laughs. ‘But we are notregular wives.
— Aditi Mathur Kumar, Soldier and Spice - An Army Wife's Life
O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible, and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I had no answer to those questions, only hope. With absolutely no one to turn to, no Mikey, no Axe, no Danny, I have to face the final battle by myself, maybe lonely, maybe desolate, maybe against formidable odds. But I was not giving up.I had only one Teammate. And He moved, as ever, in mysterious ways. But I was a Christian, and He had somehow saved me from a thousand AK-47 bullets on that day. No one had shot me, which was well nigh beyond all comprehension.
— Marcus Luttrell
The guy you don't see will kill you.
— Robin Olds
If you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly.
— Nick Lappos
I talked with the admiral’s staff. Military personnel are the worst, no disrespect intended. They clam up tighter than a bullfrog’s ass.
— Feather Stone, The Guardian's Wildchild
Service members will only stay on active duty if they can provide for their families—and DOD schools provide a world-class education that has proven time and again to be an incentive for sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines to reenlist. Military dependents that attend DoDDS schools are highly regarded by prestigious universities the world over for a number of reasons, but there’s one that you’d have a hard time replicating in a stateside school system: they’ve lived overseas, traveled the world, seen and experienced other cultures, learned foreign languages through immersion, and they’ve gained an understanding of the world that you can’t get in a traditional classroom. Add a rigorous curriculum and a long track record of high test scores throughout DoDDS, and it’s pretty easy to see why military kids are in such high demand.
— Tucker Elliot, You Look Like A Teacher
When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was forgotten.
— Robert E. Livingston
More proof that Lynn is still meant to continue with the government programme occurred during the winter of 2000, when she was sitting at a cafeteria table at the area college. It was later in the afternoon when a few people congregated there with books spread out so they could study while drinking coffee or snacking. Many tables were empty, yet after Lynn had been sitting for a few moments, an elderly man sat down across from her.The old man seemed familiar to Lynn, though, at first, she pretended to ignore him. He said nothing, just sat there as someone might when all the tables are filled and it is necessary to share space with a stranger. His presence made her uncomfortable, yet there was nothing specific that alerted her.A short while later, Mac, the man who had been Lynn's handler in Mexico, came out of the shadows and stopped at the table. He was younger than the old man. His clothes were military casual, the type of garments that veteran students who have military experience might recognise, but not think unusual. He leaned over Lynn and kissed her gently on the forehead, spoke quietly to her, and then said 'Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.' Those were the code words that would start the cover programme of which she was still part. The words led to her being switched from the control of the old man, a researcher she now believes may have been part of Dr Ewen Cameron's staff before coming to the United States for the latter part of his career, to the younger man.The change is like a re-enlistment in an army she never willingly joined. In a very real way, she is a career soldier who has never been paid, never allowed to retire and never given a chance to lead a life free from the fear of what she might do without conscious awareness.
— Lynn Hersha, Secret Weapons: How Two Sisters Were Brainwashed To Kill For Their Country
Keep thy airspeed up, less the earth come from below and smite thee.
— William Kershner
God, I swear I’ve never seen a more nervous bunch of people. Like a bunch of rats in a science lab.
— Feather Stone, The Guardian's Wildchild
As calls rang out the world over for new treaties and organizations to be established with the intent of preventing future wars, America and her allies took a more realistic approach to the problem—we maintained allied military bases across Europe and Asia and we stationed troops in these foreign territories on a permanent basis. We weren’t invaders or conquerors and for sure we had no intention of being an empire. We were liberators. That’s all. But having fought and sacrificed so much and for so long, the pragmatic thing to do was to follow this simple philosophy: it’s great to have dialogue, it just works a lot better when you have a strong military strategically placed and ready to act around the globe.
— Tucker Elliot, You Look Like A Teacher
They were worried about keeping military families strong. They were worried about the stress and strain of prolonged military service and how it would affect our military readiness the next time a Hitler-wannabe reared his ugly head. As they made a list of pros and cons for sending families overseas, they never imagined that DOD schools would be the best possible solution to nearly every problem they could envision. The most unpredictable phenomena occurred. The DOD literally created a culture of kids whose life experiences were so rich, yet so different from where they’d come from, that as they grew in years the people they most related to, the people they most wanted to be around, were other military kids who had the same shared experience. Military kids became military members—and they’ve kept us strong, our families, armed forces, our country, all of us.
— Tucker Elliot, You Look Like A Teacher
Africa must remain on the path of democracy. But democracy MUST also remain about the PEOPLE, not about power
— Fela Durotoye
I’m clinging to one last thought: pain is the harbinger of hope. You have to be alive to feel pain. If you are alive, then you have purpose. If you have purpose, then you have hope.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
It’d be easy to blame everything on 9/11 or the wars that came after. It’s really about the choices we made. By necessity we adapt to the realities of the world we live in, but if we forget that how we live shapes and influences the world around us, then we’ve already lost.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Every GI signs a blank check, payable to the United States, drawn in an amount up to and including his life.
— G.E. Nolly, Hamfist Over the Trail: The Air Combat Adventures of Hamilton Hamfist Hancock
All they expect from you is your best effort. These Marines think that they are special. They are very well trained, very close knit, and they don't like outsiders. If you want their respect, you will have to earn it.
— Bruce H. Norton, Force Recon Diary, 1969: The Riveting, True-to-Life Account of Survival and Death in One of the Most Highly Skilled Units in Vietnam
In other words if a man is armed, then one pretty much has to take his opinions into account. One can see how this worked at its starkest in Xenophon’s Anabasis, which tells the story of an army of Greek mercenaries who suddenly find themselves leaderless and lost in the middle of Persia. They elect new officers, and then hold a collective vote to decide what to do next. In a case like this, even if the vote was 60/40, everyone could see the balance of forces and what would happen if things actually came to blows. Every vote was, in a real sense, a conquest.
— David Graeber, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
In total this journey will take five flights and fifty-five hours, but in reality it began four decades and two generations ago when my uncle died in Vietnam.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
The last two days I’ve been on long bus rides, driven through the countryside on the back of a motorbike, and crossed rivers on wooden boats, traversing currents into a different century. It’s late and dark, but I’m so close now. My uncle died five kilometers from here.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Every war and conflict that the United States enters has its own ROE [rules of engagement]. Contrary to what most people think, the U.S. military does not have a complete license to kill, even in wartime. We are not a barbaric state, and we do not enter any war with the intention of unilaterally killing anything in our path. We go out of our way to spare civilian lives, to keep those who are not in the war out of it--sometimes even at the expense of risking our own soldiers' safety. We do this by creating strict rules to which our soldies adhere. These rules govern when they can fire, when they cannot; what type of force they can use, what type they cannot; what they can do in particular situations, and what they cannot. The reason for this is that battles can become very confusing very quickly, and a common soldier needs simple rules to guide him, to know when he is or is not allowed to kill--and who is and is not the enemy.
— Michael DeLong, A General Speaks Out: The Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
Don't stop aspiring. Just learn to duck. . .
— Leif Herrgesell
I felt so much pride, so much love. You get a handful of days like this in a lifetime. Take in every minute. They’ll be over soon enough, and you never know what tomorrow will bring.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
All my life my dad felt this need to protect his kids from a war he fought, a war I believed could never reach out and touch us, could never hurt us—and yet he fed us lies with his answers, shielding us from the truth about what he did there, about what he saw, about who he was before the war, and about what he became because of it. He lied to protect us from his memories, from his nightmares. Standing with my dad at The Wall, I knew the truth—no one could know so many names engraved in granite if he 'never was in danger.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
A son for a flag is a lot of sacrifice.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
I have this thought, it’s horrible, and it makes me sick, but it’s true: one day these students will grow up and have their own kids, and they’re going to name them for men and women who will die in this war.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
This is my worst fear. It’s not keeping my students safe from terrorists, it’s knowing what to do when the Chaplain comes to take Johnny out of class because not letting the terrorists win means sometimes the good guys are going to die. And those good guys have kids, and they’re sitting in my classroom.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
The meeting began well, meaning it had the potential for being short.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
I felt like I should salute. If only I knew how.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Teaching isn’t rocket science. It’s about being engaged, listening, paying attention. Despite conventional wisdom, you don’t need to talk a lot to teach well. You do need to care, though. Not so much about what people think of you or whether or not they like you, but about the kids and doing what’s best for them.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
The service members who defend our way of life ask very little in return, but they deserve teachers who will be as relentless in teaching their children as the military is in protecting our interests at home and abroad.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
I needed to talk to my dad. My dad who had been to war, who had seen its horrors, who suffered from its nightmares, my dad who was a good man, the best man I’d ever known, who, along with my uncle, I wanted to honor by teaching military kids—my dad, the only one who I would believe if he would just tell me I could be good, too, that I could do right by my students, because for sure they were going to suffer. It’s just cause and effect. We’re at war. The military fights wars. I teach military kids. I’d never served, but now I could make a difference. I just needed my dad to tell me what to do, to tell me I was good enough to get it done.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Military life is hard, even cruel—especially for the kids.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
We all lose people. We all have to live in the aftermath. It’s how we move forward that counts, but sometimes we are tethered to something in our past that won’t let us move forward.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
I’m in my classroom and I’m looking at this girl, but all I can see is my dad on the ground, in front of The Wall, telling the truth, finally—his knees drawn and his chest heaving—and when people pass by they look the other way, except for this one lady who stops to give my dad a hug. She gets down on her knees to reach him, and now she’s crying with a stranger, and without asking I know it’s because she’s lost something, too, and I wonder if in comforting my dad she thinks she can find it again. Probably not. It doesn’t work that way.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
The men and women who made up DoDDS Korea during the time I was there were an eclectic group to say the least, but as a group we were among the most talented, diverse, intelligent, fun, crazy, thoughtful, caring, and dedicated people in the world. We did important work, and we did it well. Better than that, we did it exceptionally well. We were experts in our fields, and we made each other better still because we depended on each other in ways that people who’ve never lived overseas could ever imagine.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Honestly, I had no idea how to respond. My senior year of college I’d taken a seminar titled Public Education: Situations and Strategies. I thought about emailing my professor, maybe suggest some new topics and help him get current. Maybe he’d invite me back as a guest lecturer. He’d probably expect some strategies along with the situations though, so I guess that wouldn’t work, but whatever.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
It’s hard to describe being an expatriate of sorts to people who’ve never lived overseas, but when you’re an American living in a geographically separated region within a country like Korea, you form bonds with people who you’d never associate with stateside.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
If I can be perfectly blunt, his humanities teacher was an ass.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
I felt a hand on my back, movement behind me, my guys making room, someone squeezing into our circle, and then one last hand joined the pile: my Korean aide. I guess it made sense. We were her real family. The closest thing she’d ever had to a real family, at least. All year she said maybe five words a day. 'Now kick some ass,' she said.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
This is who I was, before I was dead. When I cared, when I was relentless.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
I asked my dad once if his high school teachers began treating kids differently during Vietnam, when they knew some of their students would be drafted and sent to war. I was curious because for sure we’d started treating our military kids differently after 9/11. He just shrugged and changed the subject, like he always did. And that was okay with me. He’d go back and change a lot of things if he could; and like everyone else, I’d give anything to go back to the day before 9/11—but all we can do is move forward.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Always Sami. I was tethered to her somehow. To that scared little girl I’d found on the staircase nearly a year earlier; to the past, when teaching was simpler and I could care about everyday problems, when being relentless meant running two extra laps, not waiting for an MP to search the undercarriage of a bus for bombs before letting students approach it.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
It was too late to pray, though. The sky was clear. The helicopters were gone. Too late for so many things. My fists hit the floor. My head hit the floor. My heart broke, hardened, and I lost my faith. That’s when the killing thoughts came. When it felt right to punish everyone who let this happen. I could start with Angel’s dad—but where would it stop?
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
On the TV and in the newspapers all we hear and read is 'live your life or the terrorists win' and it sounds great, I’m all for that, except my kids won’t ask for a bathroom pass because the faculty facilities are on the first floor of the building and the MPs patrolling the second floor won’t go downstairs on their shift—so I’ve got middle school kids afraid to take a piss because there might be a soldier in the stall next to them carrying a loaded M- 16—but hell yes, I’m all for 'live your life' and screw the terrorists, and screw all the countries who harbor and support them. I’m on board with that, except I’ve got these kids who stay home now, because they’re scared riding a bus with soldiers carrying guns, knowing that one soldier isn’t enough, so there’s a military truck full of soldiers with even bigger guns following the bus 'just in case.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
In my life I’ve been very lucky to travel around the world and see students and teachers in nearly two dozen countries—but the most awe-inspiring experience I’ve ever had was two years after 9/11 when I had the chance to attend a conference in Manhattan and personally meet many of the heroic teachers who persevered under conditions that in our worst nightmares we could never have imagined. In my opinion there’s not been nearly enough written about those teachers, and I hope that changes soon.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Korea is often called the “Land of the Morning Calm.” It’s a country where you notice the filth and the smog on your first trip and you can’t imagine why you ever thought it was a good idea to visit. Then you meet the people and you walk among their culture and you get a sense there is something deeper beneath the surface, and before you know it, the smog doesn’t matter and the filth is gone—and in its place there is incredible beauty. The sun rises first over Japan, and as Korea is waiting for the earth to spin, for streaks of light to brighten its eastern sky, in that quiet moment there is a calmness that makes Korea the most beautiful country in the world.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
The only thing worse than his arrogance was his incompetence. He was a bully, behaving like an ass. I saw Angel though, not him. The memorial was right there, just outside the window. It’s in the flowers, and it makes me angry. Angel liked to sit on the couch, watch TV, eat chips. She hated outside. Maybe I should have been a bully and an ass to Angel’s parents. Maybe Angel and Grace would still be alive if I’d behaved like this piece of shit teacher.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
We could never go back to how things were on the day before 9/11, but maybe I could go back to who I was.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
I stood with my mom in the cemetery. She felt terrible pain. My grandmother is with God. My mom has to continue living. It’s not so easy, moving forward.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Ahead in the distance we could see the main gate, but there was a sea of cars, none moving, people standing, milling around, waiting nervously, perhaps fearfully, as heavily armed MPs and military working dogs searched every square inch of every vehicle, searched every bag on every person, all the while keeping a vigilant eye on the long alley we were stuck in, and on the hundreds of rooftops that overlooked that alley, wary but aware that there were people out there who would gladly hurt us again if given the chance.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
In Korea I’d been so afraid that Sami would lose her dad. She did, but she didn’t get a flag. He went to Doha, then to Baghdad, then to Kabul, then to someplace else, and then to a different someplace else, on and on. He’d come home, leave again, come home, leave again, until one day he came home a different person altogether. Sami lost Angel, lost her family, and then she lost herself.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Trying to drown me woman?"'You can't drown a SEAL,' she said. 'How embarrassing would that be?''God yes. Shoot me, hang me, let me die of infection from a hangnail, but don't let me die in the water. They'd send me to hell on principle.
— Maya Banks, The Darkest Hour
Here's to us, who's like us Damn few, and they're all dead.
— Rabbie Burns
Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory is won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
The man is a monster. The worst I have ever seen, in fact, since I last looked in the mirror. The truth? I am rotting too. I am buried alive, and already rotting. If I was not such a coward I would kill myself, but I am, and so I must content myself with killing others in the hope that one day, if I can only wade deep enough in blood, I will come out clean.
— Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes
Here at great expense,' [Colonel Groves] moaned to Oppenheimer, 'the government has assembled the world's largest collection of crackpots.
— Steve Sheinkin, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he kissed her cheek. She inhaled his masculine scent, he smelled of engine grease, citrus hand cleaner and man. She turned in his arms and laid her cheek over his beating heart, treasuring the haven of his embrace...
— Tamara Hoffa, Heart of a Soldier
What’s the difference? Fill a hundred pits with dead Northmen, congratulations, have a parade! Kill one man in the same uniform as you? A crime. A murder. Worse than despicable. Are we not all men? All blood and bone and dreams?
— Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes
The military do so love shiny new technology, there's always so many ways to abuse it.
— Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road
Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.
— Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War
There are more good people than bad people, and overall there’s more that’s good in the world than there is that’s bad. We just need to hear about it, we just need to see it.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
He committed the crime of stupidity while under my command," said Citizen."Oh my," said Rigg. "They're handing out the death penalty for that these days?
— Orson Scott Card, Pathfinder
You are not a man anymore. You are a soldier. Your comfort is of no importance and your life isn’t of much importance. Most of your orders will be unpleasant, but that’s not your business.They should’ve trained you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led along with lies.
— John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down
You cannot run faster than a bullet
— Idi Amin
You can’t live your life in a bubble, Charlie. And you can’t live Evan’s life for him. He won’t thank you if you try to wrap him in bubble wrap and set him on a shelf.
— Tamara Hoffa, Heart of a Soldier
DPRK translates to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—and if the words Democratic and Republic sound like a good thing, well, it’s oxymoronic because the Korea we’re talking about here is the communist one in the North, and when I said the pastor’s father was their guest, what I really meant is he was shot down, captured, tortured, and held prisoner by a depraved enemy in what today can only be described as a failed state.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
The look of a smug teacher is priceless.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
Okay, Charlie, you can do this, all you have to do is convince a career military man that your son shouldn’t join the Army. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?
— Tamara Hoffa, Heart of a Soldier
For your own security it’s imperative you blend in with the native population.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
It felt like we were reliving the first day of the school year, when students and teachers do the get-to-know-you dance—teachers tell students something about who they are, students pretend to care, and then vice-versa.
— Tucker Elliot, The Day Before 9/11
If you only would!" He added rather diffidently: "If you would not mind remembering that I am a military court of inquiry. It makes it easier for me to report to the general if you say things dully and in the order that they happened.
— Ford Madox Ford, Parade's End
They were frisky, eager and exuberant, and they had all been friends in the States. They were plainly unthinkable. They were noisy, overconfident, empty-headed kids of twenty-one. They had gone to college and were engaged to pretty, clean girls whose pictures were already standing on the rough cement mantelpiece of Orr's fireplace. They had ridden in speedboats and played tennis. They had been horseback riding. One had once been to bed with an older woman. They knew the same poeple in different parts of the country and had gone to school with each other's cousins.
— Joseph Heller
Not very good with death? Father was a military man, and military men lived with death; lived for death; lived on death. To a professional soldier, oddly enough, death was life.
— Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
When you get right down to it, militaries are essentially legalized mafias.
— Michelle Templet
The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military, despite having the best fighting force the world had ever known, they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood.
— Michael Hastings, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan
Give me a scholar, therefore, who is able to think and to write, to look with an eye of discernment into things, and to do business himself, if called upon, who hath both civil and military knowledge; one, moreover, who has been in camps, and has seen armies in the field and out of it; knows the use of arms, and machines, and warlike engines of every kind; can tell what the front, and what the horn is, how the ranks are to be disposed, how the horse is to be directed, and from whence to advance or to retreat; one, in short, who does not stay at home and trust to the reports of others: but, above all, let him be of a noble and liberal mind; let him neither fear nor hope for anything; otherwise he will only resemble those unjust judges who determine from partiality or prejudice, and give sentence for hire: but, whatever the man is, as such let him be described.
— Lucian of Samosata, Lucian's True History;
I absolutely hate the way the United States glorifies its military and its wars. Real heroes fight for peace.
— Michelle Templet
Troops are everywhere in their modern, digital camouflage, designed to blend in anywhere at any time. Yet at night we wear bright yellow reflective belts.
— Glenn  Dean, Soldier / Geek: An Army Science Advisor's Journal of the War in Afghanistan
In no other type of warfare does the advantage lie so heavily with the aggressor." James Franck, The Manhattan Project neatly summarize the atmic bomb.
— James Franck
As a general rule, I am opposed to tax dollars being used for – well, damn near anything, barring mail delivery, law enforcement, and heavy artillery.
— Markham Shaw Pyle
Every infantryman in the Soviet Army carries with him a small spade. When he is given the order to halt he immediately lies flat and starts to dig a hole in the ground beside him.
— Viktor Suvorov, Spetsnaz
Their notion of training was to march the men up and down in parades and reviews: these were nice to look at and gave them the impression of military discipline and precision, but as a preparation for a modern war they had no value whatsoever.
— Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924
Most people today couldn't tell a bombardier from a brigadier" - said during a lecture in aid of the Army Benevolent Fund in 2009
— Richard  Holmes, Soldiers: A History Of Men In Battle
Reinette: One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.
— Steven Moffat
Never trust a demon. He has a hundred motives for anything he does ... Ninety-nine of them, at least, are malevolent.
— Neil Gaiman, Preludes & Nocturnes
You wanted to drown in a woman. Here's your chance. Drown in her blood"~Violence(Maddox)
— Gena Showalter, The Darkest Night
Now you’re going to get it,” I said, guessing Al was coming when the ones in the back scattered. “You should have been nice.”With a weird cry, the closest surface demon fell back, but it was too late. A flash of red light exploded overhead, smashing the buildings away as if I were at the center of an atomic explosion. The surface demons scattered like brown leaves, the remnants of their clothes and auras fluttering. It was Al, and he burst into existence in a grand mood, an old-fashioned lantern in his hand and a walking cane at his side.“Rachel Mariana Morgan!” he shouted enthusiastically, raising the lantern high, and I painfully rose from my crouch, breaking my bubble with a small thought. “I’ve come to save you, love!
— Kim Harrison, Pale Demon
From the back came an unearthly, satisfied chuckle. All I could see in the rearview mirror was a dark shadow with red goat-slitted eyes. Fear slithered throu
— Kim Harrison
People shouldn't call for demons unless they really mean what they say.
— C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don’t throw away the best of yourself.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
A demonic reaper asked to be my valentine and then killed his crazy ex-girlfriend to save my life. Tomorrow I was starting up antipsychotic meds.
— Courtney Allison Moulton, Wings of the Wicked
In Venice in the Middle Ages there was once a profession for a man called a codega--a fellow you hired to walk in front of you at night with a lit lantern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons, bringing you confidence and protection through the dark streets. 
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
All my life, I've understood the nature of where I come from, but I never thought it might be wicked until now.
— Brenna Yovanoff, The Space Between
Let me tell you a little bit about demons. They love pain and other people’s misery. They lie when it suits them and don’t see anything wrong with it. They corrupt and kill and destroy, all without conscience. You just don’t have the capacity for something as honorable as loving another person.
— Brenna Yovanoff, The Space Between
That’s my girl,” she said, her eyes holding a shared pain as she saw my confusion. “Al, where are you going to put her? Not in your room. She’d pull a line through you and kill you when you hog the blankets. I’ll take the waif in. I promise I’ll bring this one up properly.
— Kim Harrison, Pale Demon
if beauty were time, you'd be eternity
— Shannon Dermott, Waiting for Mercy
you're like a dictionary, you add meaning to my life
— Shannon Dermott, Waiting for Mercy
Don't say I didn't warn you. One of these days you're going to take in a stray that'll really break your heart.”~Ed
— Kate Douglas, DemonFire
Sure.” Olivia smirked. “Good ol’ New York Public Library. I’m sure it’s up to date on the latest Demons that escape through well-guarded Demon Gates.
— Cheyenne McCray, Demons Not Included
Someone should have warned me about love's dark underbelly, about the rejection and despair.
— Victoria Scott, The Collector
Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.
— Orson Scott Card, Pathfinder
I'd rather face mythological creatures or prarnormal beings then to deal with my own demons. Nothing's scarier than being alone with your thoughts.Fuck the bump in the night BS, it's the silence that does it for me.
— Amanda  Rose
The whole crazy business seemed to pull out of my guts the very worst in me—my worst fears—the worst aspects of my character—my worst insecurities and feelings of shame and guilt. I didn't know it at the time, but that was exactly what was supposed to be happening. That's what Solomonic magick is all about. The worst in me was my problem. The worst in me was the demon. When it finally dawned on me that I had successfully evoked the demon, and I had the worst of me trapped in that magick Triangle, I had no alternative but to harness and redirect its monstrous power and give it new marching orders. From then on, that particular demon would be working for me rather than against me.
— Lon Milo DuQuette, Low Magick: It's All in Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is
How do you get on with your father ' Beleth asked.'Very well ' Pyrgus answered loyally although it was far from the truth.'I ate mine ' Beleth told him. 'He got old and feeble and useless but he wanted to hold on to power. So I took steps. Tasted disgusting - stringy tough smelly ... you know how fathers are - but it's the custom here. You're supposed to absorb the essence that way. Rank superstition of course but well ... tradition.
— Herbie Brennan, Faerie Wars
He’s here! That’s Damon over there!”Because of his height, Noah had a clear shot of the man she was pointing to. But he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Oh, come on,” he groaned. “A blond haired, blue-eyed demon?”He glanced at Willow just in time to catch her impish grin. “He’s adorable, isn’t he?”“Yeah, he’s friggin’ precious,” he muttered...
— Rhyannon Byrd, Rush of Pleasure
The things I’ve seen," he continues easily, "have shown me that the only constant is change. Too much power in one place is a fool’s errand. Eventually, and inevitably, no matter how good the intentions, or how long the life, power always wins out, and everyone suffers for it. The only true path of rational existence is balance; a constant re-assessment of the burdens of power, if you will.
— Bill Blais, No Good Deed
I wanna have the truthI wanna shelter you-Demons
— Imagine Dragons
Azhrarn, Lord of Terrors, terrified.
— Tanith Lee, Night's Master
Mario the Magnificent is Orange!" His eyes sparkle with eagerness as he winks at me.
— Bill Blais
Many large corporations are actually modeled on hell,' Brother Frank added. 'The policies and organization are almost idential. Hell, of course, is much worse.
— Maureen Johnson, Devilish
He knew a great deal of the Bible already, and he knew the Bible believed in all sorts of weird stuff. According to the Bible, God Himself was at least one-third Ghost, and that was just the beginning. You could tell the Bible believed in demons, because Jesus threw a bunch of them out of this guy. Real chuckalicious ones, too. When Jesus asked the guy who had them what his name was, the demons answered and told Him to go join the Foreign Legion. Or something like that.
— Stephen King, It
When your worst demon is yourself, no one can use it against you.
— Emory R. Frie, Enchanted Forest
I wander this path,So lost and yet so free.I have fallen so many times.My heart knows what I want,And yet, something holds me back,A demon that lusts over pointless endeavours.This path is a battlefield.One man will fall,One man will stand,A cycle till the end of my time.My heart’s main fear that it will lose,And so, I lose and I lose.My heart, so insecure,My demon, oh, so confident.Stop.
— Avina Celeste
Even though his ass extended past the seat, it was so rock hard that it didn’t droop over the sides. I checked twice to make sure.
— Deborah Wilde, The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
An icy slither ran up my core as I stared at my right hand, its tremors Richter scale violent. Was this my demon-killing ability? Destined to be some supernatural whore luring hell spawn into back alleys for deadly rub and tugs?
— Deborah Wilde, The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
The twin desires to both smack the smug off his face and rip off his pants to see for myself should have negated each other and yet, there they were. “Seriously, his stupid reality show Live like a King hits douchebag territory, but a demon?
— Deborah Wilde, The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
Other people imagined demons and monsters under the bed. Robert had actually seen them.
— Kenneth Eade, Political Thriller: Unwanted, an American Assassin Story: an assassination, vigilante justice and terrorism thriller
Even with all the lights off, the room was as bright and insistent as Martha Stewart’s smile.
— Deborah Wilde, The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
My cheeks still bulging with wine, I properly scoped out the room. Mom? Check. Dad? Check. Ari? Check? Rabbi Abrams, here to perform the ceremony to induct my brother as the latest member in the Brotherhood of David, the chosen demon hunters? Check. I spit the wine back into what I now realized was a silver chalice and handed it to the elderly bearded rabbi. “Carry on,” I told him. Then I threw up on his shoes.
— Deborah Wilde, The Unlikeable Demon Hunter
I eyed the sheriff. “So I better be breathing when He finds me.” “Who the hell are you talking about?” the sheriff blurted. I chuckled. The postman sneered at the sheriff. “She means the Demon King. The Devil. This is a phone from Hell—the real one.
— H.D.  Smith, Dark Hope
Don’t worry,” I said. “We won’t be having slumber parties and spa days any time soon.” “I quite like spa days.
— H.D.  Smith, Dark Forsaken
The blue of winter, the brown of spring, the red of summer, and the fall of green. I seek the place of treasures past. I seek the truth of sand and glass. I call to the wind of seasons past. I bring with me the best of summer. I am the one with whom you bask. Deliver me and complete your task.
— H.D.  Smith, Dark Awakened
She shoved me against the wall, pulling a knife from her belt and pressing it against my throat. “Who are you?” she hissed. I winced as the blade drew a line of blood on my flesh. I considered my options. Queen of the Fallen, no. Enemy to your children, no. “I’m Claire, the Devil’s assistant,” I answered, deciding on the simplest choice.
— H.D.  Smith, Dark Awakened
I headed for my office, but stopped when I saw my laptop on the couch. Sorrel had obviously borrowed it—again—without permission. I grabbed it, wondering what questionable site he’d left on the screen this time and making a mental note to run the anti-virus software. After taking a shower, putting on my pajamas, and fixing an ice cream sundae for dinner—yes, it was one of those days—I sat down at my desk and pulled up the web browser.
— H.D.  Smith, Dark Forsaken
I couldn’t just start killing people. That wasn’t really my thing.
— H.D.  Smith, Dark Forsaken
I can catch demons but people cry when I do that. And then I'm blamed for trying to control them. How convenient that the excuse of someone trapped in hell is that I'm manipulating her into getting out of it. That's how they see help, as an attack that must be defended at all cost. They can't see that their soul is in the hands of Satan already. He is the one instigating their fears and anger, as if they were just a puppet. They can't see that I pay a very heavy emotional, mental and physical price, every time I try to rescue one of the trapped souls, every time I love someone that doesn't know what love is anymore.
— Robin Sacredfire
a wise man is not afraid to face the truth
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We contract with them.”“And demons –”“Are one of those group.”“Like, from Hell?”“Sometimes. And sometimes from Park Avenue.
— Matt Wallace, Envy of Angels
Believers saw it as a holy battle, a spiritual warfare at its height. Believers saw themselves in a spiritual war with demons and did not see flesh and blood. When being persecuted they had pity and love for the persecutors.
— Greg  Gordon, The Following of Christ
He falls asleep believing he's been robbed, not knowing that the summoning of demons is almost always unwitting.
— Dexter Palmer, The Dream of Perpetual Motion
Every guy liked to think that his demons were meaner and crazier than anybody else's.
— Tom Piccirilli, The Last Deep Breath