“The judge's massive eyebrows crept up. "Kaldar. Are you the one speaking for the plaintiff today?" "Yes, Your Honor.""Well, shit," Dobe said. "I guess you're familiar with the law. You hit it over the head, set its house on fire, and got its sister pregnant.”

“Well, shit," Dobe said. "I guess you're familiar with the law. You hit it over the head, set its house on fire, and got its sister pregnant.”

“And I guess you judge how well you're doing by how well you sleep at night... and what your dreams are like.”

“In any case, fire burns; that's its nature, and you can't expect to change that. You can use it to cook your meat or to burn down your neighbor's house. And is the fire you use for cooking any different from the one you use for burning? And does that mean you should eat your supper raw?"Maddy shook her head, still puzzled. "So what you're saying is . . . I shouldn't play with fire," she said at last.Of course you should," said One-Eye gently. "But don't be surprised if the fire plays back.”

“If your Soviet neighbor is trying to set fire to your house, you can't be worrying about the Arab down the block. If suddenly it's the Arab in your backyard , you can't be worrying about the People's Republic of China and if one day the ChiComs show up at your front door with an eviction notice in one hand and a Molotov cocktail in the other, then the last thing you're going do is look over his shoulder for a walking corpse.”

“Have you realized" MacRyrie asked her, "that you're just like Novikov but with more charm and no OCD?""The direct thing?""Yeah," both bear and wolf said at the same time. "I like being direct. Then no one can hold shit over your head. Like when I got pregnant in high school. I ran around telling everybody. The nuns were horrified. But no one could shame me because I'd already put it all out there. For everybody!”