Status Updates From Fort Everglades

"The Seminole nation is like any other - it talks war a long time before it fires the first shot."

"I enjoy my own voice; I'll admit it freely."

"Slowly, as though she still feared to put him to the test, she drew his mouth down on hers for the kiss of welcome he had feared and longed for in equal measure."

“These, after all, were men at war. They had put all emotion aside for now; the mask of Mars has no place for hate or love.”

"The only reality was the canoe that waited at the landing stage and the river that snaked west, like a ribbon or murky gold, to the heart of the wilderness."

"Naked to this belt buckle, and bristling like a gorilla on the prowl, the commandant of Fort Everglades was every inch a man of Mars, rejoicing in his calling."

"He wondered why the old wound no longer ached when he heard Irene's name. Time is said to heal all wounds, he thought. Perhaps I'm over that agony at long last."

"Most dreamers are called mad by people who refuse to dream."

"So you read Balzac too, Doctor. Somehow, I didn't think he'd be in your library."

"Only a Frenchman would have dared to state a basic truth so simply."

"Your job, Lieutenant Prescott, is beautifully simple: you'll make this corner of the republic safe for white settlement until the end of time. Then you'll go West and do the same job in Sam Houston country, in the name of a potent young eagle - a crazy eagle whose feathers have begun to cast their shadow athwart a whole rich continent."

"Once again, Dr. Coe let his eyes rove around the circle of intent faces. Thunderbolts of Jove, he thought, to the last man. Graduates of the Point, with a thirst for combat as bright as their varnished boots and the eight bullet buttons on their sky-blue tunics."

"Hutchen's voice was as thin as a knife blade and quite as cold."