Dan Simmons Quotes

There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war.

The events of war are subject to great uncertainty.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three-quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. ... war is the realm of chance. No other human activity gives it greater scope; no other has such incessant and varied dealings with this intruder. Chance makes everything more uncertain and interferes with the whole course of events.

People do not want words - they want the sound of battle - the battle of destiny.

Our trust in the future has lost its innocence. We know now that anything can happen from one minute to the next. Politics, religion, economics, and the institutions of family and community all have become abruptly unsure.

So give me a turbulent world as opposed to a quiet world and I'll take the turbulent one.

Life is full of change and uncertainty. We know this. We experience it on a daily basis.

At some stage in most people's lives, things turn upside down, and nothing is as you expected it to be.

The Middle East is a very difficult stage to play upon. Without doubt, it is a good drama. And on occasion, there are situations so unimaginable, if not ludicrous, as to make them almost comic. But the cast is constantly changing, the audience is often disengaged, and it seems at times that no one is actually running the show.

There is no such thing as fighting on the winning side: one fights to find out which is the winning side.

Why should fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many nations unless it where to prepare them for the joy of this conflict?

How fragile and unpredictable the course of history is.

When you start a military intervention, you do not know what will happen even in the next hour

Instability is never a good idea.

Wars and revolutions cannot be prescribed and the circle of their influence determined in advance.

The unknown is the governing condition of war.

Wars: You know how you start, but you never know how you end.

Destiny and history are untidy.

There is a feeling that events are in the air; all that is unpredictable is their timing. Perhaps we shall see several more years of peace, but it is equally possible that overnight some tremendous upheaval will happen.

People are tired of constant movement, improvisation, and wild scrambling when plans fail.

The Middle East is a region where predictions go to die.

People don't like to see instability.

There's never any guarantee at war.

None can hold fortune still and make it last.