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1 " History was a series of decisions about what to tell and a series of accidents about what survived after telling. Not truth, but a historian could search for truth, and the search was as worthy as any other human activity. "
― David Drake , Patriots
2 " The use of force is always an answer to problems...[It] isn't an attractive answer, though. "
― David Drake , The Voyage
3 " Nothing’s boring if it’s in your soul… "
― David Drake , The Sharp End
4 " Anytime you're afraid to try something new...just remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic. "
― David Drake
5 " Her sanity was perhaps an unwarranted assumption. "
― David Drake , With the Lightnings (Lt. Leary, #1)
6 " First initiative, then life. "
7 " As my Uncle Theodosius always said: never chase women who are a lot smarter than you. You won't catch them, or, what's worse, you might. "
― David Drake , An Oblique Approach (Belisarius, #1)
8 " Adventure is somebody else in deep shit, far, far away, "
― David Drake , Hope Renewed (Raj Whitehall Collection Combo Volumes Book 3)
9 " To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,” “Gentlemen-Rankers,” Barrack Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling "
― David Drake , Into the Maelstrom
10 " A good officer can get away with being wrong, but he can't be indecisive. "
― David Drake , Some Golden Harbor (Lt. Leary, #5)
11 " Arrogance wasn't the same thing as stupidity, but it tended to have similar results. "
― David Drake , The Far Side of the Stars (Lt. Leary, #3)
12 " Logic wasn't the governing factor here. It rarely is in human affairs. "
― David Drake , The Reaches
13 " Lieutenant Daniel Leary ambled through the streets of Kostroma City in the black-piped gray 2nd Class uniform of the Republic of Cinnabar Navy. He was on his way to the Elector's Palace, but there was no hurry and really nothing more important for Daniel to do than to savor the fact that he'd realized one of his childhood dreams: to walk a far world and see its wonders first hand. "
14 " A fire department isn't a waste of tax money, even if those assigned to it spend most of the time washing their cars. "
― David Drake , Though Hell Should Bar the Way (RCN #12)
15 " End note to The Day of Glory The Hammer's Slammers series isn't in any sense a future history. It's made up of individual stories exploring one aspect or another of what war means to the men and women at the sharp end. In these stories I've been translating into an SF setting what I learned in 1970 with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Viet-Nam and Cambodia. We—the Blackhorse—were an elite unit. I was very fortunate to have been assigned to a regiment in which you never had to worry if the guy next to you was going to do his job: he was, and so were you—whatever you thought of war or The War or our Vietnamese allies. (Generally the answer to all those questions was, "Not much.") The flip side was that the distinction between the categories Not Blackhorse and Enemy got blurred. We didn't view our job as winning hearts and minds: we were there to kill people and then go home. And we didn't much care about the cost of victory so long as somebody else was paying it. That's something civilians ought to consider long and hard before they send tanks off to make policy. Because I can tell you from personal experience, it "
― David Drake , Other Times Than Peace
16 " End note to The Day of Glory The Hammer's Slammers series isn't in any sense a future history. It's made up of individual stories exploring one aspect or another of what war means to the men and women at the sharp end. In these stories I've been translating into an SF setting what I learned in 1970 with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Viet-Nam and Cambodia. We—the Blackhorse—were an elite unit. I was very fortunate to have been assigned to a regiment in which you never had to worry if the guy next to you was going to do his job: he was, and so were you—whatever you thought of war or The War or our Vietnamese allies. (Generally the answer to all those questions was, "Not much.") The flip side was that the distinction between the categories Not Blackhorse and Enemy got blurred. We didn't view our job as winning hearts and minds: we were there to kill people and then go home. And we didn't much care about the cost of victory so long as somebody else was paying it. That's something civilians ought to consider long and hard before they send tanks off to make policy. Because I can tell you from personal experience, it isn't something the tankers themselves are likely to worry about. "
17 " It's all right for a leader to be ruthless, Adele thought. He shouldn't be whimsical, though, and he especially shouldn't be whimsically ruthless. "
― David Drake , In the Stormy Red Sky (Lt. Leary, #7)
18 " She thought a smile that eventually touched her lips. "
― David Drake , Lt. Leary, Commanding (Lt. Leary, #2)
19 " odeum. "
― David Drake , Northworld Trilogy
20 " Last name ever first name greatest "
