quotes by Karen Traviss

"Ugliness is an illusion, gentlemen. Like beauty. Like color. All depends on the light. The only reality is action."
— Karen Traviss (Star Wars Republic Commando True Colors)

"If you take a shot at someone, you keep firing until they can no longer return fire. Wound them, and you have an angry enemy who knows your position."
— Karen Traviss

"So you want a knife, a nice sharp knife. You hone that blade to its limits. It even cuts through stone when you want it to. It saves your life. And then you're outraged when it cuts you accidentally. You see, knives don't switch off. And neither do people, not when you hone them to a fine edge."
— Karen Traviss

"Nowhere does it say free speech is carte blanche to be a jerk. And don't cheapen real free speech by hijacking an honourable concept bought dearly with people's lives just to get a little spotlight. Spotlights run hot, and they can burn."
— Karen Traviss

"Think of yourselves as a hand. Each of you is a finger, and without the others you're useless. Alone, a finger can't grasp, or control, or form a fist. You are nothing on your own, and everything together."
— Karen Traviss

"I don't know who the good guys are anymore. But I do know what the enemy is. It's the compromise of principles. You lose the war when you lose your principles. And the first principle is to look out for your comrades."
— Karen Traviss

"Sitting back and not getting involved while people get killed in an endless cycle of wars doesn't count as not having blood on your hands."
— Karen Traviss

"And nobody has the right to judge a soldier from the warmth and safety of their armchair."
— Karen Traviss

"If we don't stand up for others, who will be left to stand up for us?"
— Karen Traviss

"If you're not prepared to do something in public, don't do it at all."
— Karen Traviss

"Time means lives. Time means more chaos. We always think that time will resolve things, but it never has."
— Karen Traviss

"There's rights, and there's right."
— Karen Traviss

"It's okay to be scared as long as you use it."
— Karen Traviss

"Sergeant Skirata said that civvies didn't have a clue, and that it was alright for them to have lofty ideas about peace and freedom as long as they weren't the ones being shot at."
— Karen Traviss

"It ain't what you say: it's how you say it."
— Karen Traviss

"If you can't beat them, divide them."
— Karen Traviss

"The trouble with taking away the certainty of evil was that its vacuum was filled by all kinds of more nebulous threats, rivalries, and feuds. It became increasingly difficult to judge where the threat was coming from."
— Karen Traviss

"I shall remain vigilant and unyielding in my pursuit of the enemies of the Coalition.
I will defend and maintain the Order of Life as it was proclaim by the Allfathers of the Coalition in the Octus Canon.
I will forsake the life I had before so I may perform my duty as long as I am needed.
Steadfast, I shall hold my place in the machine and acknowledge my place in the Coalition.
I am a Gear. "
— Karen Traviss (Gears of War Aspho Fields)

""Every miracle's got a mundane explanation. [...] and you can choose - you can look at the wonderous surface or you can look at the crud beneath. I want to see the wondrous, believe me. I just know it isn't going to be there when I've finished looking.""
— Karen Traviss (City of Pearl)