And as she heard the inner echo of that defiance, she knew it didn’t matter at all that she had less than twenty people and only two sublight shuttles on a planet a light-century and a half from the nearest friendly territory, for it was inconceivable that the Peeps could keep her people here. Not after all they’d already done.
“If anyone’s outnumbered here,” Lady Dame Honor Harrington told her friends softly, “it’s the Peeps.”
"You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day. If there is a Hell, you might wanna go there for some R & R after a tour on Pandora. Out there beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes. We have an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na’vi. They’re fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin that will stop your heart in one minute - and they have bones reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fiber. They are very hard to kill. As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed. Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong, mental aptitude. You got to obey the rules: Pandora rules. Rule number one… "
Perhaps you’ve heard this story? Once, when people were pure and innocent, there was a box they were told to never open, but someone went and opened it anyway. He unleashed all the evils of the world: envy… greed… pride… violence… control… All that was left in the box was a single ray of light: hope. We now confront these evils, and you are that last ray of light, our only hope.
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
Two thousand million or so years ago two galaxies were colliding; or, rather, were passing through each other.
So, next up on the to-do list: Declare war on the Andromeda Galaxy.
I am Saint Exmin of the Valkyrie. It’s been a very enjoyable fight.
Keep listening to your sister. Leie knows it’s tooth and claw out there. Go on now. Go and fight the world.
He shut up, realizing that grim old Mother Nature, red of tooth and claw, invariably punished damfools who tried to ignore Her or to repeal Her ordinances; he need not interfere.
There is no end
To what a living world
Will demand of you.
It was a howl in which pain, anger, menace, and the outraged majesty of Nature all blended into one hideous shriek. For a full minute it lasted, a thousand sirens in one, paralysing all the great multitude with its fierce insistence, and floating away through the still summer air until it went echoing along the whole South Coast and even reached our French neighbours across the Channel. No sound in history has ever equalled the cry of the injured Earth.
You’d scream if you had the breath.
“I think you should reconsider,” Ramirez said softly, and Scotty Tremaine turned away, his face white, at the sound of his voice. “I only said I wouldn’t *kill *you, Mr. Summervale,” the colonel whispered almost lovingly. “I never said I wouldn’t hurt you.”
When the nurse leaves, the doctor mouths, “Act like you’re in pain.”
It’s easier to talk someone into brain surgery than it is to convince them to read a book.
Sometimes you have fun, and sometimes the fun has you.
Four stores and many Christmases ago, my father brought forth a factory conceived in innocence and joy and squeezable fun for everyone.
Fourscore and… seven minutes ago, we, your forefathers, were brought forth upon a most excellent adventure conceived by our new friends, Bill and Ted. These two great gentlemen are dedicated to a proposition which was true in my time, just as it’s true today: Be excellent to each other. And… PARTY ON, DUDES!!!
Your people talk a lot about going to the stars, but you just keep putting your money into other projects, like war and popular music and international athletic events and resurrecting the fashions of previous decades. If you wanted to go into space, you would have.
…She wasn’t anyone special. She wasn’t that brave, that clever or that strong. She was just somebody that felt cramped by the confines of her life. She was just somebody who had to get out. And she did it! She went out past Vega, out past Moulquet and Lambard! She saw places that aren’t even there anymore! And do you know what she said? Her most famous quotation? “Anybody could have done it.”