Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable—and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach.

Death, that's life.

The life of man is like the life of a blade of grass. Death comes, the grass withers, and behold life ends, and the flower falls of all greatness and all worldly goods.

I came to understand the most intriguing irony of life, that the most intimate partner of life is death.
(Page 94)

The objective is to provide an analog close to space where the consequences are really life and death, ... Rookies can make their mistakes before they get to space.

He was going to die soon, you knew when you saw those eyes. There was no sign of life in his flesh, just the barest traces of what had once been a life. His body was like a dilapidated old house from which all furniture and fixtures have been removed and which awaited now only its final demolition.