Joe Haldeman - Forever Peace (1997)

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You're actually a soldier, he said to me, and you go along with this foolishness?
I didn't ask to be a soldier. And I can't imagine a peace as foolish as this war we're in.

Joe Haldeman
It was an ideological war for some—the defenders of democracy versus the rebel strong-arm charismatic leaders. Or the capitalist land-grabbers versus the protectors of the people, take your pick.

Joe Haldeman
Nobody else in that platoon can tell a Hamiltonian from a hamburger.

Joe Haldeman
You were a Jesuit?
Franciscan. We run a close second in being pains in the ass.

Joe Haldeman
She smiled. I wouldn't mind. Is that a difference between men and women or between you and me?
I think it's a difference between you and merely sane people.

Joe Haldeman
We did it with their government's foreknowledge and permission, of course—and there were no civilian casualties, equally of course. Once they're dead they're rebels.

Joe Haldeman
Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human.

Joe Haldeman
One thing most of us agree on is that the universe exists (people who deny that usually follow some trade other than science), so if some theoretical particle interaction would lead ultimately to the nonexistence of the universe, then you can save a lot of electricity by not trying to demonstrate it.

Joe Haldeman
Like a lot of things that everybody knows, it wasn't true.

Joe Haldeman
Some are born crazy, Amelia said. Some achieve craziness. We had craziness thrust upon us.

Joe Haldeman
Maybe after the war we'll be civilized again. That's the way it has always happened in the past.

Joe Haldeman
Human nature does change, and the fact that we've developed tools to direct that change is quintessentially human. And it must be a nearly universal concomitant to technological growth everywhere in the universe; otherwise there would be no universe. Unless we're the only technological intelligence in the universe, Julian pointed out; so far there's no evidence to the contrary. Maybe our own existence is evidence that we're the first creatures to evolve far enough to hit the reset button. Somebody does have to be first.
But maybe the first is always the last.

Joe Haldeman