"You see, when... when you end up killing one of your men, you see, you tell yourself it happened so you could save the lives of two or three or ten others. Maybe a hundred others. Do you know how many men I've lost under my command? Ninety-four. But that means I've saved the lives of ten times that many, doesn't it? Maybe even 20, right? Twenty times as many? And that's how simple it is. That's how you... that's how you rationalize making the choice between the mission and the man." "I'm a schoolteacher. I teach English composition... in this little town called Adley, Pennsylvania. The last eleven years, I've been at Thomas Alva Edison High School. I was a coach of the baseball team in the springtime. Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think well, now that figures. But over here, it's a big, a big mystery. So, I guess I've changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her. And how I'll ever be able to tell her about days like today. Ah, Ryan. I don't know anything about Ryan. I don't care. The man means nothing to me. It's just a name. But if... You know if going to Rumelle and finding him so that he can go home. If that earns me the right to get back to my wife, then that's my mission. You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right. All right. I won't stop you. I'll even put in the paperwork. I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel." "When I think about everything we've been through together, maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey, and if that journey takes a little longer, so we can do something we all believe in, I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with." "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth."

There is a scene in Way of the Gun that comes to mind.

[b] [/b]

"You should shut your -blam!-ing hole. Ugly little -blam!-. You look like a -blam!-ing ball sack. Ugly looking stupid -blam!- face. I could piss in any gutter and sow five of you. You know how much they pay me to kill a man at King's Landing? Seven silvers. They told me a man's name and that man never saw daylight again. None of them cocksuckers got away from me. I haven't lost a fight since I was nine. MAYBE IT'S TIME? DO YOU THINK? EH? Maybe you're the man. EH? -blam!-? You wouldn't stand a chance. None of you would. I was a -blam!-ing LEGEND in Gin Alley. The -blam!-ing LEGEND. I would take any knight, ANY knight, any time. -blam!-ing cunts in steel plate -blam!-ing cowards." The Legend of Gin Alley

[i]But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself, and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?[/i]

Just 'cause you pour syrup on something doesn't make it pancakes!

I'm tried of these snakes on this plane.

A lack of preparation on your part, does not constitute an emergency on mine.

"We have made man proud of every vice expect cowardice" -Screwtape

"The problem is not that there is evil in the world. The problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?"