“The one ring road around the airfield is paved, but heavily rutted and potholed. Every few days a street-sweeper makes its way around, polishing the rutted surface with brushes and water.”

“Troops are everywhere in their modern, digital camouflage, designed to blend in anywhere at any time. Yet at night we wear bright yellow reflective belts.”

“The whole what-goes-around-comes-around thing is simply our way of trying to make sense out of things that make no sense. Great stuff happens to bad people. Bad shit happens to good people. This is just the way it is.”

“I don't want to even think about what kind of creatures could be lurking out there in the dark in the middle of the sticks. Probably the same ones lurking around during the day, but I've learned that dangerous things like to wait till night to surface, when you can't see the coming.”

“Sometimes complex and difficult moral choices are decided less by reason and by right than by sentiment. Perhaps such decisions are paving stones on the road to Hell; if so, my route is well paved, and the welcoming committee all ready knows my name.”

“He's the President—it's the responsibility of every citizen to criticize aggressively when they think it's warranted.”

“And there he sat, looking outwardly composed, and all she could think of was that pond. Because something about him, something in his eyes, divulged the secret; there was a whole world in there, thriving just below the surface where no one could see it.”