Five Ways to Forgiveness (Hainish Cycle, #7)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

What would that world be, a world without war? It would be the real world. Peace was the true life, the life of working and learning and bringing up children to work and learn. War, which devoured work, learning, and children, was the denial of reality.

but he had held fast to the one noble thing.

you don’t change a mind with a gun. You kill the boss and you become the boss.

The great gate of the compound stood wide open. How can I tell you what that was to us, to see that, to see that gate stand open? How can I tell you?