Harry Turtledove

If they had lawyers instead of teeth, they’d be as bad as people.

From what I’ve seen, people who brag a lot are usually trying to convince themselves even more than other people.

Believe worked well enough when a man could not measure it against facts. But when he could…Facts crushed to belief like a mammoth crushing a vole.

“By God, you are a hateful man!”

“Anyone who tells you anything you don’t want to hear is a hateful man,” Hamnet answered.

If you were half as funny as think you are, you’d be twice as funny as you really are.

If barbarians recognized that they were barbarians, they wouldn’t be so barbarous any more.

What people believed often turned out to be true just because they believed it. Charlatans and mages were quick to take advantage of that.

He didn’t care what she thought, and, in not caring, he felt as if a curse were lifted from his back.

“Mammoths make me believe in God,” Trasimund said… “How could mammoths make themselves? God had to do it.”

“You could say the same thing about mosquitoes.” Eyvind Torfinn punctuated the observation by slapping. “You could even say God liked mosquitoes better than mammoths, because he made so many more of them.”

A man who gets angry at the truth will have a hard time in life, don’t you think?

“Knowledge is strange,” Eyvind Torfinn said. “You never can be sure ahead of time what you may need. Someone who is going to a strange place will carry different tools on his belt. Should he not carry different tools in his head as well?”

“Foolishness,” Ulric Skakki said. “Everything that goes on between men and women is full of foolishness.”