# Quote — Harry Turtledove, Settling Accounts: In at the Death

> That wasn’t even remotely fair, but politics wasn’t about being fair. Politics was about getting your guy in and keeping the other side’s guy out. Once you’d done that, you could do all the other neat stuff you had in mind. If you stood on the sidelines looking longingly toward the playing field, all the neat ideas in the world weren’t worth a dime.

- Author: [Harry Turtledove](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove.md)
- Book: [Settling Accounts: In at the Death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-in-at-the-death.md)
- Page: 464
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove#Settling_Accounts:_In_at_the_Death_(2007)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-in-at-the-death/that-wasnt-even

## More from this book

> You have to understand what you’re fighting for. Otherwise, you were an animal—a brave animal, maybe, but an animal all the same.

p. 530 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-in-at-the-death/you-have-to-understand.md)

> After a case like that, writing about the work O’Doull had done during the war didn’t seem so bad. That, at least, had mattered. This? While he was sewing and splinting and cutting, he looked forward to this with a fierce and simple longing. Now that he had it again, he discovered the danger of getting exactly what you thought you wanted. It could prove as unfortunate in real life as in fairy tales.

p. 542 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-in-at-the-death/after-a-case.md)

> Jonathan Moss didn’t like Houston. It was even hotter and muggier than Georgia and Alabama, and that was saying something. New Orleans was supposed to be just as bad, or maybe worse, but you could have a good time in New Orleans. If you could have a good time in Houston, Moss hadn’t found out how.

p. 477 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/harry-turtledove/settling-accounts-in-at-the-death/jonathan-moss-didnt.md)