It was fully appropriate, she’d said, slapping back at a branch that had slapped her first, for a woman named Troublesome to choose a mountain named Troublesome when she went into exile. “Fully appropriate, and seemly,” said Granny Hazelbide. “I’d of done the same exact thing, in her place.” “Well,” grumbled [Granny] Shenyjake, “there may be something to what you say.” “I should hope and declare there is. Naming is naming!” “But,” went on the other doggedly, “I do not see that there was any special merit to be gained from her establishing herself at the very most tip top of this accursed hump of dirt and rock. She was not named Peak of Troublesome, you know. Halfway up would of done it, seems to me. Quarterways up.”
“Stay out of trouble, Art.”
“Go find some trouble, Clark.”
“Just before they went into warp, I beamed the whole kit and kaboodle into their engine room, where they’ll be no tribble at all.”
If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.
Encounters between strangers in the desert, while rare, were occasions of mutual suspicion, and marked by initial preparations on both sides for an incident that might prove either cordial or warlike.
Be polite, be courteous, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
“Why, as to that, I’ve been pondering the precisely correct posture to adopt vis-à-vis the Tsuggs, protocol-wise. I confess for a few moments I toyed with the idea of a beefed-up 804-B: Massive Dignity, with overtones of Leashed Ire; but cooler counsels soon prevailed.”
“How about a 764, sir?” the Econ Officer essayed: “Amused Contempt, with just a hint of Unpleasant Surprises in the Offing?”
“Too subtle,” Colonel Saddlesore grunted. “What about the old standby, 26-A?”
“Oh, the old ‘Threat To Break Off Talks’ ploy, eh, Wilbur? Embellished with a side issue of Table-shape Dispute, I assume?”
All of us have people who saw weaknesses, who saw pressure points, and who saw ways to use of own ways and stubbornness against us. This threat is real. This treat is both practical and existential. It it isn’t met by all of us, all of us are likely to be destroyed.
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout “Save us!”… and I’ll look down and whisper "No.
How do you use a weapon of ultimate mass destruction when it can stand in judgment on you? There is only one man who would even try.
It’s doomsday. The end of the world. Help me!
Let me help. A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words even over I love you.
He pressed his lips together and I saw the muscles of his jaw working. This was Peter’s being-a-manager face. It meant he was figuring out how to help you.
To tell you the truth, I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have that little wedge of gum to chew on every moment of the day, I really wouldn’t. My mother says it’s not ladylike and it looks ugly to see a girl’s jaws going up and down like mine do all the time, but I don’t agree.
Not milady, merely madam.
“I 'ave nevair been more insulted in my life! 'Alf-giant? Moi? I 'ave — I 'ave big bones!”
Live, die, something else lives. The very soil humanity walks upon is built up from death. Digging into a flowerbed means digging into bones.
If you refuse, you die; she dies; everybody dies!
You get killed? Walk it off.
I ain’t got time to bleed.