The Best of Us Quotes

“He was caught up in processing it too. It was a revelatory moment in his understanding of what Bednarz had set as his task, his duty to humanity, his development of human values within himself: I want you to define the best, seek it out, and protect it against all its enemies. The best wasn’t engineering genius, exquisite artistry, or philosophical insight. He understood now that it was about qualities rather than skills: loyalty, trust, a willingness to sacrifice yourself for others and for beliefs you held dear, to give up your future for someone else’s. Before today, those concepts had always seemed almost theologically distant. Now he’d had a glimpse of them being lived out minute by minute, and the key to them was death. Even he was enmeshed in it now.”
― Karen Traviss, The Best of Us