The Last Battle Quotes & Sayings

Meralda opened her eyes. "I'm for a bath," she said. "Now, and Yvin be hanged."

Shingvere crowed. "At last, our battle cry," he said. "A bath, and the king be hanged!" he shouted, brandishing his fork. "Clean clothes, then victory! — Frank Tuttle

A monster crosses over into the everyday world. The mortals struggle and show great courage, but it's no use. The monster kills first the guilty, then the innocent, until finally only one remains. The Last Boy, the Last Girl. There is a final battle. The Last One suffers great wounds, but in the final moment vanquishes the monster. Only later does he or she recognize that this is the monster's final trick; the scars run deep, and the awareness of the truth grows like an infection. The Last One knows that the monster isn't dead, only sent to the other side. There it waits until it can slip into the mundane world again. Perhaps next time it will be a knife-wielding madman, or a fanged beast, or some nameless tentacled thing. It's the monster with a thousand faces. The details matter only to the next victims. — Daryl Gregory

The world will not help, the people must help themselves. Its own strength is the source of life. That strength the Almighty has given us to use; that in it and through it, we may wage the battle of our life The others in the past years have not had the blessing of the Almighty - of Him who in the last resort, whatever man may do, holds in His hands the final decision. Lord God, let us never hesitate or play the coward — Adolf Hitler

There is no dignity in death in battle. Mostly that is a splashing about of human meat and fluid, and the result is filthy, but there is a great and almost sweet dignity in the sorrow, the helpless, the hopeless sorrow, that comes down over a family with the telegram. Nothing to say, nothing to do, and only one hope - I hope he didn't suffer - and what a forlorn and last-choice hope that is. — John Steinbeck

You can apply some leverage when your child is feeling energetic, "We can go to the park as soon as these blocks are put away." But when a toddler is tired or hungry, avoid a losing battle. Do it yourself for now. There will be plenty of other opportunities for your child to participate. Don't worry, this is not the last mess!! — Julie King

Werewolves are the guardians of humanity, and their form should be purer while exorcised. They'll be assets in the last battle. — S.M. Reine

Then, already, it had brought to his mind the silence brooding over beds in which he had let men die. There as here it was the same solemn pause, the lull that follows battle; it was the silence of defeat. But the silence now enveloping his dead friend, so dense, so much akin to the nocturnal silence of the streets and of the town set free at last, made Rieux cruelly aware that this defeat was final, the last disastrous battle that ends a war and makes peace itself an ill beyond all remedy. The doctor could not tell if Tarrou had found peace, now that all was over, but for himself he had a feeling that no peace was possible to him henceforth, any more than there can an armistice for a mother bereaved of a son or for a man who buries his friend. — Albert Camus

We've got to protect Jonathan and Darkness, don't we?" She swung herself onto Moonlight's back. "Let's go, girl." As one of the last fighters to the point, Alanna could clearly see that the enemy had advanced past the trees, engaging Jon's men in the clearing around the main path. She glimpsed Jonathan's silver and sapphire gleaming in the thick of the battle as Darkness reared to fight as well. Myles was beside the prince, with Gary and Raoul flanking them both. The enemy would have trouble — Tamora Pierce

The [Dow-Alcoa and Alcoa-IG] negotiations [of 1929] reveal strikingly the technique of cartel diplomacy - the steady application of "pressure" and the resort alternatively to challenges and blandishments. The similarity to power politics in which trial by battle is a last resort is marked. The procedure discloses the vast gulf between big business in practice and the patterns of behavior assumed in a regime of free competition. It shows how the conference table superseded the market as the arena for decision making. — George W. Stocking

The notion that Culloden destroyed the Highland clans is a myth; the traditional ways had been dying for years. Long before, without realizing it, the chieftains and the Crown had conspired to obliterate the old system of loyalties and mutual dependence in order to consolidate their own power. The battle was the clans' last stand, just as the myth states. The glory was gone. — Arthur Herman

This was how I was going to die - not in battle, not from the plot of some Council member hell-bent on destroying me, but trampled to death by a bunch of pure-bloods. Of all the ways to die.

I was so going to haunt every last one of them. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

They say in the military that a good battle plan can last as long as five minutes in real fighting. After that, it comes down to if the general is favored by fate and the spirits. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Michael had taken over the Apollo cabin after Lee Fletcher died in battle last summer. Michael stood four-foot-six with another two feet of attitude. He reminded me of a ferret, with a pointy nose and scrunched-up features - either because he scowled so much or because he spent too much time looking down the shaft of an arrow. "It's our loot!" he yelled, standing on his tiptoes so he could get in Clarisse's face. "If you don't like it, you can kiss my quiver!" Around the table, people were trying not to laugh - the Stoll brothers, Pollux from the Dionysus cabin, Katie Gardner from Demeter. Even Jake Mason, the hastily appointed new counselor from Hephaestus, managed a faint smile. Only Silena Beauregard didn't pay any attention. — Rick Riordan

There exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and joins battle with the forces of law and respectability in a desperate struggle, waged partly by cunning and partly by violence, at once sick and ferocious, in which it attacks the prevailing social order with the pin-pricks of vice and the hammer-blows of crime. — Victor Hugo

Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

But it seems somehow paltry and wrong to call what happened at Midway a "battle." It had nothing to do with battles the way they were pictured in the popular imagination. There were no last-gasp gestures of transcendent heroism, no brilliant counterstrategies that saved the day. It was more like an industrial accident. It was a clash not between armies, but between TNT and ignited petroleum and drop-forged steel. The thousands who died there weren't warriors but bystanders -- the workers at the factory who happened to draw the shift when the boiler exploded. — Lee Sandlin

The man still fighting last week's battle will always lose to the man already fighting tomorrow's, — Brian Staveley

I have killed, robbed and injured too many white men to believe in a good peace. They are medicine and I would eventually die a lingering death. I had rather die on the field of battle. Look at me, see if I am poor, or my people either. The whites may get me at last, as you say, but I will have good times till then. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee. — Sitting Bull

I'd have you see the like this; I'd have you see them very well. Will you? They are clustered around Suzie's Cruisin Trike, embracing in the aftermath of their victory. I'd have you see them this way not because they have won a great battle - they know better than that, every one of them - but because now they are ka-tet for the last time. The story of their fellowship ends here, on this make-believe street and beneath this artificial sun; the rest of the tale will be short and brutal compared to all that's gone before. Because when ka-tet breaks, the end always comes quickly.
Say sorry. — Stephen King

When will you rest? Even in the heat of battle. I tell you, rest does not always look like a hammock stretched between two trees on a lazy summer evening. Rest can mean looking to Me and My grace even as you swing your weapon. Rest is simply being with Me. "I promise you this: I will be with you every step of the way. I will hold you together when you feel that you could fall apart. And I will be there to celebrate with you when at last your battles are at an end." Even — Dennis Jernigan

Why could Tolkien not be more like Sir Thomas Malory, asked [Edwin] Muir, in the third Observer review of those cited above, and give us heroes and heroines like Lancelot and Guinevere, who ' knew temptation, were sometimes unfaithful to their vows,' were engagingly marked by adulterous passion? But T.H. White had already considered that paradigm, was indeed rewriting it at the same time as Tolkien in The Once and Future King; and he had seen the core of Malory's work not in romantic vice but in the human urge to murder. In White the poisonous adder that provokes the last disastrous battle is no adder but a harmless grass-snake, and the flash of the sword which brings on the two armies is not natural self-defense but natural blood-lust, creating a continuum from cruelty to animals to world wars and holocausts. Malory has to be rewritten to encompass a new view of evil. — Tom Shippey

They have scarcely finished burying the dead from the last battle, and already they are practicing for the next one. — George R R Martin

I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour. — J.K. Rowling

We don't know the final outcome, or even know how long the battle will last, but we do know the referee. — K. Howard Joslin

Besides being on the run for my life for the last couple of weeks, shooting living beings, being held hostage, kidnapped , nearly raped and murdered,watching people be ripped apart, facing off against not one but two crazy shapeshifters, and oh yeah, having to watch you fight a life-or-death battle because of me. Twice. Besides all that, no of course nothing's wrong. — Kat Simons

Fearghus watched his mate a moment longer. It had been five years since he last saw her. Five years since he last touched her, kissed her, fucked her, saw her smile, told her to calm down, yanked a weapon from her hands before she hurt someone, or stopped her from getting in a pit brawl with her own daughter. It had been too long since he'd done all that and it was a bit overwhelming to be here now, so close to her after all this time.
Annwyl slammed her spear into another Sovereign, then leaned against it, wiping her brow with the back of her hand and looking out over all the bodies she and her troops had left behind.
She looked rather proud. — G.A. Aiken

I am the last of the Kerluhm. The Ifayle, who heeded our first summons, are all but destroyed. Those few that remain cannot extricate themselves from the conflict. I myself did not expect to survive the attempt. Yet I have.'
'A horrific conflict indeed,' Lady Envy quietly observed. 'Where does it occur?'
'The continent of Assail. Our losses: twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and fourteen Kerluhm. Twenty-two thousand two hundred Ifayle. Eight months of battle. We have lost this war.'
Lady Envy was silent for a long moment, then she said, 'It seems you've finally found a Jaghut Tyrant who is more than your match, Lanas Tog.'
The T'lan Imass cocked her head. 'Not Jaghut. Human. — Steven Erikson

Tomorrow, in the fields of my kingdom, may you have a happy battle.
May your kingly hands be terrible in weaving the sword stuff.
May those opposing your sword become meat for the red swan.
May your many gods glut you with glory, may they glut you with blood.
Victorious may you be in the dawn, king who treads on Ireland.
Of your many days may none shine bright as tomorrow.
Because that day will be the last. I swear it to you, King Magnus.
For before its light is blotted, I shall vanquish you and blot you out, Magnus Barfod. — Jorge Luis Borges

So the British, of all ages, still walk the course. On trips to Florida or the American desert, they still marvel, or shudder, at the fleets of electric carts going off in the morning like the first assault wave at the Battle of El Alamein. It is unlikely, for some time, that a Briton will come across in his native land such a scorecard as Henry Longhurst rescued from a California club and cherished till the day he died. The last on its list of local rules printed the firm warning "A Player on Foot Has No Standing on the Course." — Alistair Cooke

A final stand, then. One last battle. At least he could say that he had fought. When he met his brothers and sisters on the far side of death, he would tell them that he had not yielded. He might have betrayed everything that they had been bred for, but he had never yielded. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Headquarters must never find out about this hellish embarrassment. We must do on our own, without any help from the navy. You and I, Grisha, we must stick together on this one. You're all I've got, Grisha, you're all I have." Grisha sat down slowly on the firm couch. He and the Captain had gone many, many miles together, since the early days of Soviet subs, through this cold war and a few hot ones. They were among the last remnants of the Second World War veterans left in the Soviet Navy. He was always sure they would serve together until the end. He had never envisioned such an end. I must not let it happen, he thought and looked up to his Captain. "Don't worry, Valerie," he said, calling the Captain by name, as he had always called him when they were by themselves with a bottle of Cognac. "We've seen much worse and lived to drink about it. We shall make it this time, too. We haven't lost this battle yet." His calm demeanor reassured — Herzel Frenkel

Michael felt as if his heart might burst. With the death of the council he had felt as though he had lost everything that mattered to him, but here in his arms, he found the last piece of hope he had left in the world. We have to go back and help Gabe. — Wendy Owens

The hardcover book was an academic monograph from a Midwestern university about the Battle of Kursk. Kursk happened in July of 1943. It was Nazi Germany's last grand offensive of World War Two and its first major defeat on an open battlefield. It turned into the greatest tank battle the world has ever seen, and ever will see, unless people like Kramer himself are eventually turned loose. — Lee Child

Just before the light completely vanished, I saw Dimitri's face join Lissa's. I wanted to smile. I decided then that if the two people I loved most were safe, I could leave this world. The dead could finally have me. And I'd fulfilled my purpose, right? To protect? I'd done it. I'd saved Lissa, just like I'd sworn I'd always do. I was dying in battle. No appointment books for me.
Lissa's face shown with tears, and I hoped that mine could convey how much I loved her. With the last spark of life that I had left, I tried to speak, tried to let Dimitri know I loved him too and that he had to protect her now. I don't think he understood, but the words of the guardian mantra were my last conscious thought.
They come first. — Richelle Mead

Through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion. — Abraham Lincoln

Cable is not a robot. The metal in his body is actually organic tissue. Ed and I have talked about this a lot. We liken it to a cancer that changes your body's cellular structure. Last time we saw him, his arm had been severed. It's back with a kind of force that will play a major role in this storyline. This is a battle inside Cable's body that he has waged since the first time he appeared. — Jeph Loeb

Sometimes we want to keep the battle going...until at last we we cut ourselves free. I don't forgive you to give to you, I forgive you to give to me. — Kate McGahan

She shrieks above the din. If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight. — Libba Bray

You are a fool to speak of last great battles, Sam, for the last great battle is always the next one. — Roger Zelazny

The lowest form of war is To attack Cities. Siege warfare Is a last resort ... The Skillful Strategist Defeats the enemy Without doing battle, Captures the city Without laying siege, Overthrows the enemy state Without protracted war.34 — Henry Kissinger

In fighting nature, man can win every battle except the last. If he should win that too, he will perish, like an embryo cutting its own umbilical cord. — Thor Heyerdahl

There's only one way for a professional soldier to die. That's from the last bullet of the last battle of the last war. — George S. Patton

Villanelle for my valentine
Old love, I thought I'd never see the time
because of all we've done and often said
when I'd be yours, my dear, and you'd be mine.
And what relief to soften, and resign
the battle of the heart over the head.
old love, I thought I'd never see the time
when qualms and cold feet that could undermine
all we've held out for, dissipate instead
now that I'm yours, my dear and you are mine.
I'm still amazed how our two lives align
the two of us! A pair! Take it as read,
old love, I thought I'd never see the time
The tangle of our jumpers in the line,
the battle for the blankets in our bed
confirm that I am yours, and you are mine.
So then, this is my pledge, my valentine:
my hand's in yours for all that lies ahead.
Oh love, there's never been a better time
now that I'm yours, and finally, you're mine. — Elise Valmorbida

We are all ghosts," Morris Klapper said at last. "We are conceived in a moment of death and born out of ghost wombs, and we play in the streets with other little ghosts, chanting ghost-rhymes and scratching to become real. We are told that life is full of goals and that, although it is sadly necessary to fight, you can at least choose your war. But we learn that for ghosts there can only be one battle: to become real. A few of us make it, thus encouraging other ghosts to believe it can be done. — Peter S. Beagle

You ask me if I will not be glad when the last battle is fought, so far as the country is concerned I, of course, must wish for peace, and will be glad when the war is ended, but if I answer for myself alone, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end. — George Armstrong Custer

I feel great that I've been given a chance in the golden years of my life. To me, it's the last battle, and I've been given a chance to get stuck in some good armament, some good power, and there's a chance that now I can finish off my working years with my head held high. — Eric Burdon

In the battle of faith, money is usually the last stronghold to fall. — Ronald Dunn

Gabe watched, holding his breath as the figure slowly turned. The body moved in an almost unnatural way as it shifted and crawled slowly on all fours across the floor. When the candlelight at last fell on the figure, Gabe could make out the auburn hair of his beloved Sophie. Her hair was matted, greasy, and hung in her face.
Gabe saw her shoulders were hollow looking and her skin was almost glowing white. Gabe caught sight of Sophie's fingers, her knuckles were bloody, and her nails cracked and peeling. Instinctively, Gabe fell to his knees and crawled to Sophie. Without even giving it a thought, he grabbed her hands and pulled them closer to the light. — Wendy Owens

It had been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. (Waterloo 18 June 1815)

'I hope to God,' he said one day,'that I have fought my last battle.It is a bad thing to be always fighting.While in the thick of it,I am much too occupied to feel anything;but it is wretched just after.It is quite impossible to think of glory.Both mind and feeling are exhausted.I am wretched even at the moment of victory,and I always say that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.Not only do you lose those dear friends with whom you have been living,but you are forced to leave the wounded behind you.To be sure one tries to do the best for them,but how little that is!At such moments every feeling in your breast is deadened.I am now just beginning to retain my natural spirits,but I never wish for any more fighting. — Arthur Wellesley

Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried: 'Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!' Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive ... — J.R.R. Tolkien

Jocelyn put out her hand, took Luke's, and kissed the back of it lightly. Clary averted her eyes. Her mother turned back to her a moment later. "God, the Clave - if only they would listen." She blew out a frustrated breath. "Clary, we understand why you did what you did last night, but we thought you were safe. Then Helen showed up on our doorstep and told us you'd been injured in the Citadel battle. I nearly had a heart attack when we found you in the square. Your lips and fingers were blue. Like you'd drowned. If it hadn't been for Magnus - " "Magnus healed me? What's he doing here, in Alicante? — Cassandra Clare

Each day the forces of evil and the forces of good enlist new recruits. Each day we personally make many decisions showing the cause we support. The final outcome is certain
the forces of righteousness will win. But what remains to be seen is where each of us personally, now and in the future, will stand in this battle
and how tall we will stand. Will we be true to our last days and fulfill our foreordained missions? — Ezra Taft Benson

There is no fix for this. She has to endure it, and somewhere along the line she has to learn to live again. Surviving isn't the goal. Living is. This is a battle between me and her grief, and I'm going to be the last man standing. — Anne Calhoun

I really enjoyed the last scene at the Ewok celebration after the battle. — Peter Mayhew

Shogo looked at Shuya and Noriko. "The winner's forced to transfer to another school where he or she is ordered not to mention the game and is instructed instead to lead a normal life. That's all."
Shuya felt his chest well up inside and his face froze. He stared at Shogo and realized that Noriko was holding her breath.
Shogo said, "I was a student in Third Year Class C, Second District, Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture." He added, "I survived the Program held in Hyogo Prefecture last year. — Koushun Takami

Creativity builds upon the public domain. The battle that we're fighting now is about whether the public domain will continue to be fed by creative works after their copyright expires. That has been our tradition but that tradition has been perverted in the last generation. We're trying to use the Constitution to reestablish what has always been taken for granted
that the public domain would grow each year with new creative work. — Lawrence Lessig

It takes real courage to do battle in the unspectacular task. We always listen for the applause of our co-workers. He is courageous who plods on, unlettered and unknown ... In the last analysis it is this courage, developing between man and his limitations, that brings success. — Alice Foote MacDougall

Kolya rose to a crouch and crept to the front door, keeping his head below the window line. I followed. We kneeled with our backs against the door. Kolya checked his pistol one last time. I pulled the German knife from my ankle sheath. I knew I looked silly holding it, the way a young boy looks holding his father's shaving razor. Kolya grinned at me as though he was about to start laughing. This is all very strange, I thought. I am in the middle of a battle and I am aware of my own thoughts, I am worried about how stupid I look with a knife in my hand while everyone else came to fight with rifles and machine guns. I am aware that I am aware. Even now, with bullets buzzing through the air like angry hornets, I cannot escape the chatter of my brain. — David Benioff

Louis Brandeis beloved uncle, Lewis Dembitz, was an ardent abolitionist. His mother was an abolitionist in Kentucky at a time when Brandeis remembered hearing the shot from the confederate soldiers after the second battle of Bull Run. Amazing to think that he heard that and I studied with one of his last law clerks in college. And that encapsulates almost all of American history. — Jeffrey Rosen

He became aware of a man drawn
alongside them, frozen in stillness even
in the midst of battle, and
knew that what had just happened had
been seen, and overheard.
He turned, the truth on his face. Stripped
bare, he could not hide himself in that
moment. Laurent, he thought, and lifted
his gaze to meet the eyes of the man who
had witnessed the last words of Lord
Touars.
It wasn't Laurent. It was Jord.
He was staring at Damen in horror, his
sword lax in his hand. — C.S. Pacat

How're the cats?" he asked, smiling a little. He did miss Angel Marie. Hell, he missed them all.
"Feral," Benny sniffed. "And horny. Every time one of us walks in, they all start humping our shoes."
"They're fixed," Shane mumbled, but the conversation was oddly reassuring. It sounded normal, and like home.
"Tell that to the big fuzzy brown one ... ."
"Orlando Bloom?"
"Yeah, whatever. Last time I was there that damned animal violated my knitting."
Shane lost a battle with a laugh and then whined because it hurt his ribs.
"Violated?"
[ ... ]
"Let's just say that wool is no longer virgin," she quipped dryly, and Shane's chest shook. — Amy Lane

She threw in the last suggestion entirely in a sporting spirit. She loved battle, and she had a feeling that this one was going to finish far too quickly. To prolong it, she gave him this opening. There were a dozen ways in which he might answer, each more insulting than the last; and then, when he had finished, she could begin again. These little encounters, she held, sharpened the wits, stimulated the circulation, and kept one out in the open air.
- The Romance of an Ugly Policeman — P.G. Wodehouse

I've known the thrill of winning a tough ball game and of winning a golf match on the last hole. But to me the biggest thrill is to win the big one - the spiritual battle of life. — Billy Graham

It is sometimes frightening to observe the success which comes even to the outlaw with a polished technique, and we find ourselves doubting the validity of the virtues we have been taught. But I believe we must reckon with character in the end, for it is as potent a force in world conflict as it is in our own domestic affairs. It strikes the last blow in any battle. — Philip D. Reed

If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side's battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and from the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it. — C.S. Lewis

Wars results in immediate deaths and destruction, but the environmental consequences can last hundreds, often thousands of years. And it is not just war itself that undermines our life support system, but also the research and development, military exercises and general preparations for battle that are carried out on a daily basis in most parts of the world. The majority of this pre-war activity takes place without the benefit of civilian scrutiny and therefore we are unaware of some of what is being done to our environment in the name of 'security. — Rosalie Bertell

We don't know when the war will end, so we can't continue our journey," he said. "The battles may last for a long time, perhaps even years. There are powerful forces on both sides, and the war is important to both armies. It's not a battle of good against evil. It's a war between forces that are fighting for the balance of power, and, when that type of battle begins, it lasts longer than others - because Allah is on both sides. — Paulo Coelho

Getting her back the last time was a battle. This time, it's going to take a war. — Stylo Fantome

I've always welcomed war, but when the last battle ends, what life is left for a warrior? — Andrea Cremer

In a way, 'On the Road's greatest victory is that nobody's eyes will be opened any longer by reading it; the last time I met any young people who were actually 'on the road' was when I covered Occupy St. Louis. Those few, dirty kids were fighting a battle even they couldn't articulate. — Tony D'Souza

A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last, the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person - this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? — Joseph Conrad

We have a historic system in place since the early part of the last century and this is going to be one of the biggest battles in California if we decide to take it on. — Marc Levine

The shield wall reeks of shit, and all a man wants is to be home, to be anywhere but on this field that prepares for battle, but none of us will turn and run or else we will be despised for ever. We pretend we want to be there, and when the wall at last advances, step by step, and the heart is thumping fast as a bird's wing beating, the world seems unreal. — Bernard Cornwell

Ivanov: You only qualified last year, my dear friend, you're still young and confident, but I am thirty-five. I have the right to give you some advice. Don't marry a Jew or a psychopath or a bluestocking but choose yourself someone ordinary, someone a shade of grey, with no bright colour and no superfluous noises. In general, construct your whole life on a conventional pattern. The greyer, the more monotonous the background, the better. My dear fellow, don't do
battle against thousands all on your own, don't tilt against windmills, don't beat your head against walls ... And may
God preserve you from all kinds of rational farming, newfangled schools, fiery speeches ... Shut yourself in your shell and do your little God-given business ... It's snugger, healthier and more honest. — Anton Chekhov

One by one the angels had come to the top of Har Megiddo where I sat, holding her body close to mine after she'd died. I'd fought alongside them in battle, but up close, when they stood quietly watching us, they looked as beautiful as they looked unreal. the angels weren't supposed to feel emotions, but they were all weeping. All of them. Their tear stained their flawless faces like rain running in rivulets across stone. Azrael was the only one of then who came to me, knelt in front of me and took her from my arms. He was the angel of death come to carry his sister home. I din't want to give her up, knowing it would be the last time I ever saw her face. I had died on that wretched hill with her. — Courtney Allison Moulton

You boys ain't but two weeks off the farm. Your mama probably gave you your last bath. You think you went through one battle and you're soldiers now? I saw that boy fight for his cause. I saw him sicken and almost die for it. He sang around that fire when he had nothing left to sing. He sang for us. that boy gave everything and then he up and left and I say God bless him. — Kathy Hepinstall

The war against Napoleon was won not by England but by Russia, Austria, and Prussia; but England won the last battle and she won the peace. — J. Christopher Herold

If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not. — C.S. Lewis

This the American Black man knows: his fight is a fight to the finish. Either he dies or he wins. He will enter modern civilization in America as a Black man on terms of perfect and unlimited equality with any white man, or he will enter not at all. Either extermination root and branch or absolute equality. There can be no compromise. This is the last great battle of the west. — W.E.B. Du Bois

It's love, not the Battle of Thermopylae. You don't have to treat everything like it's a last stand. — Cassandra Clare

Lan told me once that Malkier lives so long as one man wears the hadori in pledge that he will fight the Shadow, so long as one woman wears the ki'sain in pledge that she will send her sons to fight the Shadow. I wear the ki'sain, Master Aldragoran. My husband wears the hadori. So do you. Will Lan Mandragoran ride to the Last Battle alone? — Robert Jordan

Corbulo: a name to conjure with, a name to follow into battle, wherever he led; a name to have a man marching to the gates of Rome, crying Imperator! until the crowds and the idiot senate and the corrupt wax-brains of the Praetorian Guard and every other man with voting powers in the city came to understand what we already knew: that this man should be our emperor, that Rome would thrive under his rule, in place of the fool who presently held the throne.
Corbulo, who stood before us that bright, brisk spring afternoon and watched as our centurions bawled us through our paces, and then as Cadus took charge and marched us through the display that we had been practising, if we were honest, for the last four years, just for this moment. — M.C. Scott

Wells?" Someone was prodding his arm. "Hey, Wells?" Wells's eyes snapped open, draining the last droplets of a dream from his mind. He'd been floating down a canal in Venice. No, wait, he'd been riding a horse into battle alongside Napoleon. Kendall — Kass Morgan

As it enters the twenty-first century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak economy, or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics. An antiquated and overly rigid political system to begin with - about 225 years old - has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result is ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia - politics as theater - and very little substance, compromise, and action. A "can-do" country is now saddled with a "do-nothing" political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving. By every measure - the growth of special interests, lobbies, pork-barrel spending - the political process has become far more partisan and ineffective over the last three decades. — Fareed Zakaria

Nearly every aspect of modern civilization has been flattening down except one: money. Minting money is one of the last jobs left for a central government that most political parties agree is legitimate. It takes a central bank to battle the perennial scourges of counterfeit and fraud. Someone has to regulate the amount of money issued, keep track of the serial numbers, ensure that the money is trusted. A robust currency requires accuracy, coordination, security, enforcement - and an institution that takes responsibility for all those. Thus behind every currency stands a watchful central bank. — Kevin Kelly

She is playing a game that she doesn't want to play, but can't seem to quit. As a player she wishes to see how the game concludes, but she also wishes the other player would retreat. She wants to win after-all and she makes for a sore loser, but her combatant uses his moves to keep her off-guard and primed for his advance. Should she block him, outmaneuver him, or just play dead until his back is turned? Isn't the last the way of the female? — Donna Lynn Hope

This is my password," said the King as he drew his sword. "The light is dawning, the lie broken. Now guard thee, miscreant, for I am Tirian of Narnia. — C.S. Lewis

Hatred the only moving force, a petulant unhappy striving - childhood the only happiness, and that unknowing; then the continual battle that cannot ever possibly be won; a losing fight against ill-health - poverty for nearly all. Life is a long disease with only one termination and its last years are appalling: weak, racked by the stone, rheumatismal pains, senses going, friends, family, occupation gone, a man must pray for imbecility or a heart of stone. All under sentence of death, often ignominious,frequently agonizing: and then the unspeakable levity with which the faint chance of happiness is thrown away for some jealousy, tiff, sullenness, private vanity, mistaken sense of honour, that deadly, weak and silly notion. — Patrick O'Brian

Did you think it was my intention to murder Whiskey Jack? Do you think I just cut down honourable men and loyal soldiers out of spite? ... They got in my way, damn you! Just as you're doing now! ...
The Tiste andii's faint smile nearly broke Kallor's heart. No, he understands. All to well. This will be his last battle, in Rake's name, and anyone's name.
Kallor drew out his sword. "Does it occur, to any of you, what these things do to me? No, of course not. the High King is cursed to fail, but never to fall. the High King is but ... What? Oh, the physical manifestiation of ambition. Walking proof of its inevitable price. Fine." he readied his two handed weapon.
"Fuck you, too". — Steven Erikson

The antagonistic exponents of freedom and absolutism must thus meet at last and then will be fought the mighty battle on which the world will look with breathless interest; for on its issue the freedom or the slavery of the world will depend. — Christopher Hitchens

During the last war when there was a market for everything that could be produced, the production capacity of Canada and the United States, which were outside the battle area, increased one hundred percent. — John Boyd Orr

In spite of certain distressing but isolated occurrences in the last battle, I certainly hoped that the Army would be in a position to continue to hold out. — Paul Von Hindenburg

I have felt for the last 10 years I have had this battle; I've been fighting so hard to have an education. It's been this uphill struggle. I was Warner Bros' pain in the butt. I was their scheduling conflict. I was the one who made life difficult. — Emma Watson

Browns seek knowledge, Blues meddle in causes, and Whites consider the questions of truth with implacable logic. We all do some of it all, of course. But to be Green means to stand ready. In the Trolloc Wars, we were often called the Battle Ajah. All Aes Sedai helped where and when they could, but the Green Ajah alone was always with the armies, in almost every battle. We were the counter to the dreadlords. The Battle Ajah. And now we stand ready, for the Trollocs to come south again, for Tarmon Gai'don. the Last Battle. We will be there. That is what it means to be Green. -Alanna — Robert Jordan

And it came to pass that in the hour of defeat Aragorn came up from the sea and unfurled the standard of Arwen in the battle of the fields of Pelennor, and in that day he was first hailed as king. And at last when all was done he entered into the inheritance of his fathers and received the crown of Gondor and the Sceptre of Arnor; and at midsummer in the year of the Fall of Sauron he took the hand of Arwen Undomiel, and they were wedded in the city of the kings. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The last thing I'd ever subscribe to are fashion rules. However, I do think that you should put effort into what you wear. Clothing is ultimately the suit of armor in which we battle the world. When you choose your clothing right, it feels good. And there's nothing shallow about feeling good. Owning your style, however, is much more about your attitude than it is about what's on your back. But don't underestimate the transformational possibilities that getting dressed can afford you. — Sophia Amoruso

I've noticed that 'news' is not what's happened. It's what's happened on camera. If a herd of tigers runs amok in a remote Indian village, it's not news. If a gang of wide-eyed rebels slaughters the inhabitants of a faraway African village, it's not news. But if it's a bit windy in America, it is news. Because in America everything that happens is recorded. I find myself wondering if last week's Israeli raid on a Turkish ship in a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza would have had the coverage it did if the battle hadn't been captured on film. And likewise the racing driver who broke a leg after crashing in the Indy 500. It only became a big deal because we could watch the accident from several angles in slow motion. — Jeremy Clarkson

At the beginning of a campaign it is important to consider whether or not to move forward; but when one has taken the offensive it is necessary to maintain it to the last extremity. However skilfully effected a retreat may be, it always lessens the morale of an army, since in losing the chances of success, they are remitted to the enemy. A retreat, moreover, costs much more in men and materials than the bloodiest engagements, with this difference, also, that in a battle the enemy loses practically as much as you do; while in a retreat you lose and he does not. — Napoleon Bonaparte

He is not a tame lion," said Tirian. "How should we know what he would do? We, who are murderers. Jewel, I will go back. I will give up my sword and put myself in the hands of these Calormenes and ask that they bring me before Aslan. Let him do justice on me."
"You will go to your death, then," said Jewel.
"Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death?" said the King. "That would be nothing, nothing at all. Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? It is as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun."
"I know," said Jewel. "Or as if you drank water and it were dry water. You are in the right, Sire. This is the end of all things. Let us go and give ourselves up."
"There is no need for both of us to go."
"If ever we loved one another, let me go with you now," said the Unicorn. "If you are dead and if Aslan is not Aslan, what life is left for me? — C.S. Lewis

What do we want from our mothers when we are children? Complete submission. Oh, it's very nice and rational and respectable to say that a woman has every right to her life, to her ambitions, to her needs, and so on--it's what I've always demanded myself--but as a child, no, the truth is it's a war of attrition, rationality doesn't come into it, not one bit, all you want from your mother is that she once and for all admit that she is your mother and only your mother, and that her battle with the rest of life is over. She has to lay down arms and come to you. And if she doesn't do it, then it's really a war, and it was a war between my mother and me. Only as an adult did I come to truly admire her--especially in the last, painful years of her life--for all that she had done to claw some space in this world for herself. — Zadie Smith