Tiamat's Wrath (The Expanse, #8)

by James S.A. Corey

She liked the analogy not because it was accurate, but because it was evocative. That was what made analogies useful.

The huge moments in life seemed like they should have more ceremony and effects. The important words—the life-changing ones—should echo a little. But they didn’t. They sounded just like everything else.

But all the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn’t cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly all that had been promised. And the price was your soul.

Even in war, there were lines no one should cross.

The fastest way to undermine a strategic plan is to abandon it before there’s sufficient reason to do so.

“I think I must have lived my life wrong somehow,” she said. “I know the feeling,” he said. “But then I see you, and I think something must have gone right. Even if everything else treats me like my previous incarnation killed a priest.”

And about the goal at the end. That was the trick of grand strategy. Knowing where the journey was ending even when you were making up all the individual steps to get there.

This is writing