“Tous, nous aimons ce que nous détruisons.”

“All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.”

“Time turns our lies into truths.”

“Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.”

“Hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities.”

“When a gift is deserved, it is not a gift but a payment.”

“We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life—they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.”