David VanDyke > Quotes

“The worst plan executed quickly and violently is better than the best plan not executed at all.”
― David VanDyke, Reaper's Run

“Markis shook himself. What’s wrong with me? Reaching inside for the anger, he used it to regain his balance. Remember, this woman tried to kill me. The body reaches for sex after violent action, the urge to procreate, but I swore off all of that when…”
― David VanDyke

“She’d seen it in the Corps, and in the gangs before that. Power itself, to those who had it, was more important than anything else, or anyone. It didn’t matter whether the wielder was a slave owner, a pigheaded officer or a politician. As soon as they got power, and felt afraid of losing it, then they would abuse it, and to hell with the people that got hurt.”
― David VanDyke, Reaper's Run

“phages”
― David VanDyke, The Eden Plague

“Biology can’t be outrun: healing takes energy and materials, no matter how advanced the drug or technique. And”
― David VanDyke, The Eden Plague

“What’s the most important factor in any organization?” “Umm…is this a trick question?” “Nope. Just answer.” “Okay…morale?” “Morale is a symptom and an indicator, not a cause.” “Oh, like…the answer is always ‘Jesus’?” Jill burst out laughing at the old joke they’d discovered they both knew: in church, the answer is always ‘Jesus.”
― David VanDyke, Comes the Destroyer

“Humanity had always been brutally selfish; one slip, trip and fall away from lynch-mob violence, from downright evil. It wouldn’t take much of a breakdown in society to push them all across that line.”
― David VanDyke, The Eden Plague

“You son of a bitch, I’ll hunt you down for Andy’s sake, I swear to God I will –”
― David VanDyke

“Sleep was a big black scary thing inhabited by dreams”
― David VanDyke, The Eden Plague

“All you had to do was take a visit to Dachau or Auschwitz or Srebrenica to see what kind of monsters humans could be. Humanity had always been brutally selfish; one slip, trip and fall away from lynch-mob violence, from downright evil. It wouldn’t take much of a breakdown in society to push them all across that line.”
― David VanDyke, The Eden Plague

“A man has to do some good in this world, even though he knows he can’t do everything.”
― David VanDyke, Flagship Victory

“pregnant?”
― David VanDyke

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” A few million Virginians stood quietly ready to prove him right if the Feds ever tried to take their liberty and the guns they protected it with.”
― David VanDyke, Plague Wars Trilogy

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, girl. I’m jus’ sayin’, there’s a little good in most bad, and the other way ’round too. This country is too big and there’s too many ornery people for the crazies to take over for long.”
― David VanDyke, Reaper's Run

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
― David VanDyke, The Eden Plague

“IF YOU LEAVE ME HANGING I WILL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE GOOK SHIT! And you’ll never see it coming, though you do have the comfort of knowing it will be quick and clean. Anyway, give everyone my best. Take care, and I’ll write back when I can.”
― David VanDyke, Eden's Exodus

“horrifying results when order broke down and people turned on each other to settle old scores, or grab as much of the diminishing pie as possible.”
― David VanDyke, Battleship Indomitable

“Detachment is often an excuse to abdicate moral responsibility and a convenient shelter to hide cowardice.”
― David VanDyke, Eden's Exodus

“A commander didn’t have the luxury of turning down systems that increased battlefield effectiveness just because they made him personally uncomfortable.”
― David VanDyke, Conquest and Empire

“That’s always the way people accumulate power. They claim patriotism; they say they are providing security. Play on people’s fear. Stalin did it, Hitler did it, and Mao.”
― David VanDyke, The Eden Plague

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
― David VanDyke, Plague Wars Trilogy

“Power itself, to those who had it, was more important than anything else, or anyone. It didn’t matter whether the wielder was a slave owner, a pigheaded officer or a politician. As soon as they got power, and felt afraid of losing it, then they would abuse it, and to hell with the people that got hurt.”
― David VanDyke, Reaper's Run

“That was an ironclad rule of politics: the lesser came, hat in hand, to plead with the greater.”
― David VanDyke, Hive War

“a free society had to be founded on lasting values: integrity, stability, hard work, family.”
― David VanDyke, Starship Liberator

“rights come with responsibility. Freedom doesn’t mean anarchy and chaos, stepping all over anyone else. Those people have rights to their lives too, even if they chose badly.”
― David VanDyke, Starship Liberator

“First Conquest, Stellar Conquest Book 1,”
― David VanDyke, Comes the Destroyer

“Cognitive bias will maintain their belief in the impossible long after the facts have been made clear to them. Only when confronted with impending death might they change their minds.”
― David VanDyke, Battleship Indomitable

“Never repair the unbroken,”
― David VanDyke, Starship Liberator

“transmission gap it could”
― David VanDyke, Flagship Victory

“He sipped fine whiskey from a glass poured from a bottle he did not share, the better to emphasize his superior equality.”
― David VanDyke, Starship Liberator