“History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.”

“There are always survivors at a massacre. Among the victors, if nowhere else.”

“I knew from hunting food the thing you need most of isn't water or ammo, it's patience.”

“Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, its victory is assured.”

“The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory nor defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants”

“The nature of this melancholy becomes clearer, once one asks the question, with whom does the historical writer of historicism actually empathize. The answer is irrefutably with the victor. Those who currently rule are however the heirs of all those who have ever been victorious. Empathy with the victors thus comes to benefit the current rulers every time.”

“For every struggle that Joe survived,
For every dispute he endured, to rise,
Joe will go down in history
as a model for champions to come. While Frazier was a man of few words, Ali was a world of mouth, but he found his place in history. Now his heart can express him well. Joe Frazier was a silent warrior, whom Ali silently admired. One could not rise without the other.”

“But then I remembered something Grandmere had once assured me of: No one has ever died of embarrassment-never, not once in the whole history of time.”

“The captain is different too, Cyana. Before, the Roc flew under half a man, a man who’d only known victory. Now I’m a whole man. I know defeat as well.”

“Defeat is most devastating at the moment of victory" Saint Dane”