Quotes by Steve Perry

When he drank his coffee, that was all he did. If his com chimed or there was a caller at the door, he ignored it. He didn't read the newsfax, nor even listen to any of his favourite music. His one cup deserved, and got, his full attention. He'd once heard a story about a monastery on the top of some mountain in Japan or somewhere. After a long trek in the cold to get there, the monks would offer to sell you a cup of coffee. You had a choice: There was a two-dollar cup - or a two-hundred- dollar cup. When pressed to explain the difference, the monks were reported to say, 'A hundred and ninety-eight dollars.

When they'd been on the run, with death maybe lying in wait around any corner, they had never been more alive. When each day might be your last, it made a big difference. You couldn't maintain that state forever, of course; the stress would eat you alive, but putting yourself at risk did bring out your best-or your worst

This would be a tricky operation, no doubt of that, and a mistake would probably be fatal. So many things he had done over the years would have been fatal, had his luck not been strongly good. He had cheated death dozens of times, but that did not mean he could take it as a given. A man needed only one fatal mistake to end the game

There's always a price for what you want

There may or may not be a God or gods; the Siblings do not concern themselves with proving or disproving such a thing. By definition, gods are more powerful than men, and thus quite able to fend for themselves without help

The injury that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance

No, now he didn't want to let himself get too close because he knew it wasn't going to last. Good stuff never lasted. Change would come and wipe it away, and what was the point? It hurt too much every time it was ripped away and he was getting tired of losing pieces of himself. Pretty soon there wouldn't be much left, just scraps of gristle and bone without feeling. He didn't need that

If you shoot a man across a field or even a room, you don't get the full impact of what you've done. Facing an opponent one-on- one, hand-to-hand or with a sword, you have to accept your personal responsibility. Killing somebody ought to be messy. You should be sprayed with his blood, you should be able to hear him scream, catch the death rattle, smell the faeces and urine as the bowels and bladder let go. You should have to dispose of the body. So you know exactly what it was you did

"Humans suffer from self-centred notions as to the nature of life. Humans assume that alien life forms should conform to standards that match our own, including logic and morality. Even among humans, morality is ignored when expedient. Why should we expect more from an alien life form than we demand from ourselves?"

He had regrets, of course, but not so many that he would lose any sleep over them. Life surprised him now and then and he didn't much care for surprises, unless he was passing them out. But - what was to be done? You had to deal with the reality, he had learned that over the years, no matter how much you didn't like it