The freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.

Peri went to the window, gesturing out at the dragons, perched and flying, everywhere. "Safe, true, but how boring! How confining! How sad! How could that compare with this? And what is safe? You were not safe on your little farm. War came to you and took all your safety away! If I am to be in this world, I want more than to be a hound upon the game board, tucked away in a corner until the jackals come and sweep all away!

We wouldn't have to take your rights away if you'd just stop exercising them.

It is easy to be disgruntled if you are denied rights and freedoms to which you feel entitled. But if you are not coherent, if you cannot put into words what it is that displeases you and why it is unfair and should change, then you are dismissed as an unreasonable whiner. You may be lectured about perseverance and patience, life as a test, the need to accept the higher wisdom of others.

It makes sense for people who are good at fighting to go out and do it-because if they're good at it, that means the fewest number of other people die.

Van, Van, we’re only simple, fallible mortals - we aren’t saints, we aren’t angels - we fall on our faces and make errors and sometimes people die of them - sometimes people we love dearly -