Leptomeryx

David Weber is an American science fiction author. Many of his stories have militaristic, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. His assumption of gender-neutral military services allows him to place female characters in what have often been seen as traditionally male roles, exploring the challenges faced by women in the military and politics. His most enduring character is Honor Harrington, whose story, together with the "Honorverse" she resides in, has been developed in 11 novels and four shared universe anthologies as of spring 2004.

On Basilisk Station (1993)

• My duty is not affected by what others may or may not do to discharge their own.
  • quote from Honor Harrington

The Honor of the Queen (1993)

• But what kept them on their feet when there was no sane reason for hope were the bonds between them, loyalty to one another, the knowledge others depended on them even as they depended on those others. And sometimes, all too rarely, it came down to a single person it was simply unthinkable to fail. Someone they knew would never quit on them, never leave them in the lurch.

• The world's best swordsman doesn't fear the second best; he fears the worst swordsman, because he can't predict what the idiot will do.
  • quote from Honor Harrington

The Short Victorious War (1994)

• But the universe wasn't really unfair, she thought, and her mouth quirked. It just didn't give much of a damn one way or the other.

• I suppose I ought to think up some dramatic, quotable phrase for Public Information and the history books, but I'm damned if any of them come to mind. Besides, admitting the truth wouldn't sound too good (...) The truth, Russell, is that now the moment's here, I'm scared shitless. Somehow I don't think even Public Information could turn that into good copy.
  • quote from Havenite Admiral Amos Parnell, after ordering his fleet to depart for the opening attack of the Haven-Manticore War.

Field of Dishonor (1994)

• … Henke sensed her terrifying aptitude for destruction as never before. Henke had feared for her sanity; now she knew the truth was almost worse than that. Honor wasn't insane — she simply didn't care. She'd lost not only her sense of balance but any desire to regain it.
  • Michelle Henke considering Honor Harrington's state of mind

Flag in Exile (1995)

• He bit his lip and realized how right the Protector had been to stop him from offering her a commission months ago. Not because she couldn't do the job, but because she was afraid she couldn't. Because she would have refused it, and that refusal would have ended her career forever. Inability, real or imagined, could never truly be overcome once an officer accepted deep inside that he could no longer hack it. That damage was almost always permanent, for it was self-inflicted and no one else could heal it for him.

• Perhaps his love for her made him less than impartial, but he also knew how deeply she'd been hurt and chided her for judging herself so much more harshly than she would have judged someone else…

• No one else knew how she'd longed for extinction, how much part of her had hungered simply to quit. To end. She'd once intended, coldly and logically, to do just that… She'd sacrificed her naval career… and a corner of her mind suspected she'd actually wanted to sacrifice it — that she'd planned to use the loss of the vocation she loved so much as one more reason to end her dreary existence. It had seemed only reasonable then; now the memory was one more coal of contempt for her own weakness, her willingness to surrender to her own pain when she'd always refused to surrender to anyone else.

Honor Among Enemies (1996)

• "Oh, Christ! We're all gonna die. You seen the kinds'a casualty lists she comes up with?"

Echoes of Honor (1998)

• The reason for his anguish, the intolerable burden which had broken him at last, was the simplest thing in the world: he loved his wife. He always had, and he always would. Nothing could change that, but that was what had made his agony bite so deep, the reason he couldn't forgive himself for not somehow making things "all right" again… and the reason he'd had to turn to someone else to rebuild himself when the collapse came. It had been cowardly of him, in many ways, but he simply could not have made himself dump his weakness, his collapse on her shoulders while she coped with everything God had already done to her.

Ashes of Victory (2000)

• "Oops"
  • Shannon Foraker, after covertly sending a sequence of instructions which causes 24 of StateSec's 8-megatonne warships to self-destruct with all hands (about 150,000 crew).

Crown of Slaves (2004)

with Eric Flint

• God, I love the "fine morality" of the wealthy and powerful. You'll spill tears over your own, in a heartbeat. And then never even look twice at people below you, whose very lives are ground under every day, day after day, year after year.
  • quote from W.E.B. Du Havel

• Son, you'll know you're in love when a woman's voice settles into your spine.
  • a remembered quote from Victor Cachat's father

• "No problem, kaja" Lara nodded with exaggerated obeisance. "You may lead, so long as we may follow."
  • "Great kaja! Kill them all!"