Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)

by John Scalzi

It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.

The problem with aging is not that it’s one damn thing after another—it’s every damn thing, all at once, all the time.

in a decade you’ll be eighty-five, and then the only difference between you and a raisin will be that while you’re both wrinkled and without a prostate, the raisin never had a prostate to begin with.

“I didn’t mind getting old when I was young, either,” I said. “It’s the being old now that’s getting to me.”

you do what you have to do to give people closure; it makes them feel better and it doesn’t cost you much to do it.

I’d rather apologize for something I didn’t really care about, and leave someone on Earth wishing me well, than to be stubborn and have that someone hoping that some alien would slurp out my brains. Call it karmic insurance.

I felt like plopping down on the floor and having a tantrum until I got my way. I was unfortunately too old (or alternately, not nearly old enough) to get away with that sort of behavior.

You have selected “Asshole,” the BrainPal wrote, and to its credit it spelled the word correctly. Be aware that many recruits have selected this name for their BrainPal™. Would you like to choose a different name?

Each of you will fail, but you will fail in your own unique way, and therefore I will dislike each of you on an individual basis.

Do not mourn me, friends I fall as a shooting star Into the next life She sent it and the last moments of her life to the rest of us, and then she died, hurtling brightly across the Temperance night sky. She was my friend. Briefly, she was my lover. She was braver than I ever would have been in the moment of death. And I bet she was a hell of a shooting star.

The institution had replaced a cog. And I missed her.

Part of what makes us human is what we mean to other people, and what people mean to us. I miss meaning something to someone, having that part of being human. That’s what I miss about marriage.”

The point is: multiple universes. The multiverse. What the skip drive does is open a door to another one of those universes.” “How does it do that?” I asked. “You don’t have the math for me to explain it to you,” Alan said.

“The Sparrowhawk?” Jensen said. “No shit.” “What about the Sparrowhawk?” I asked. The name was unusual; battalion-strength spaceships were traditionally named after midsize cities. “Ghost Brigades, Perry,” Jensen said. “CDF Special Forces. Industrial-strength motherfuckers.”

I’m gone. Into another universe.

Guns don’t kill people, the aliens behind the triggers do.