Home > Work > Ghost of the White Nights (Ghost, #3)
1 " Someone in my country made a comment along the lines that solutions are always possible if you are willing to let someone else take the credit. "
― L.E. Modesitt Jr. , Ghost of the White Nights (Ghost, #3)
2 " For weeks he knows I go…and today…today, he says he must hear Elfreda and Caron. "
3 " Affordable,” I mused. “That’s an interesting concept. That depends on who pays, and what. It’s always better if people can trade benefits. That way, no one has to explain the budget, and each party can take credit for the increased revenues or production or whatever. "
4 " An incompetent imbecile?” “Imbeciles, they have some brains! Le grand professeur…he has none. "
5 " The great problem that the arts have always faced in countries where the populace has too great a say in their funding is that what is funded must reflect popular taste, and, as we in Russia know all too well, popular taste is seldom excellent. Here, we show them what is excellent, and they are grateful. "
6 " Nuclear weapons have no business in a civilized world. "
7 " David and Waafl were cut from the same mold—ignore reality, follow tradition, mouth platitudes, and try to save money at the expense of both faculty and students. Oh…and increase administrative costs, staff, and perks, while economizing on everything else. "
8 " Russia has no desire to turn Europe or anywhere else into black glass or a radioactive wasteland. We Russians have always loved the land. We would not do that.” I shook my head. With that strong a denial, the Russians were attempting something—and probably failing, given the observations in the newspaper. "
9 " I had the feeling that we’d be seated with the ambassador and his wife, and probably with Drummond Kent, and that we’d talk pleasantries, and that I’d learn very little new, no matter how hard I tried, because Hagel was a well-trained politician and could talk forever while only seeming to impart information and because he knew very little of what was going on and because Drummond Kent knew even less. "
10 " The Russians’ great strength is that they will take any losses necessary to destroy an invader. That hasn’t changed since Napoleon. "
11 " Power there is. Politics are not power. "
12 " There are always stories…and some are better not told in depth. Then, all the mystery and glamour vanishes. "
13 " Too often, especially in democratic societies, people mistook the mechanisms of power for power itself. "
14 " Popularity is an element in any system, even the most autocratic and regimented, because it is so much easier to count heads or hands than to evaluate excellence. "
15 " The Russians have a saying. Offer a man a finger, and he will take your hand—if not your arm. "
16 " the most important thing was to show strength of will, not when matters were going well, but when they were going badly. "
17 " I could certainly see the Austrians supporting any group that had a good chance of creating a civil war in Russia, but I could also see the Ohkrana and the tzar creating a plot where none existed to focus discontent away from St. Petersburg, and the Romanov autocracy. "
18 " someone should teach those who will lead that excellence in the military cannot be based on technology alone, no matter how advanced and how fantastic. Nor can it be based merely on economics or body counts. "
19 " IN OUR WORLD there are ghosts and ghosts: those which are real, and those of our own pasts, which are equally real, if less tangible, but often more dangerous. "
20 " Like too many professional politicians, Clinton Mills had the kind of personality that focused on the person he addressed, so much that almost everyone felt special. As with the politicians, I just felt uneasy. "