"Light glinted in Lin’s compound eyes. Her headlegs quivered. She picked up half a tomato and gripped it with her mandibles. She lowered her hands while her inner mouthparts picked at the food her outer jaw held steady."

"Damn, what a sorry-looking outfit. You boys don't look so crazy to me."

"Mood? What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises — no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting."

“The lenses were empty quicksilver, regarding him with an insect calm.”

"Audacity, always audacity" — soundest principle of strategy. In practicing medicine I learned that when you are most at loss is the time when you must appear confident. In law I had learned that, when your case seems hopeless, you must impress the jury with your relaxed certainty.

"Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more'n the rest of 'em-"

"So it goes."