Quotes about combat
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“The Good Fight is the one that we fight in the name of our dreams.”

Source: The Pilgrimage

“But 'Thou mayest!'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

God

“The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Way, Time

“Monsters don't die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of trouble cleaning up after a fight.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

“We pledge to fight 'blue-sky thinking wherever we find it. Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.”

Gavin Pretor-Pinney (1950) British writer

Source: The Cloudspotter's Guide

Life, Thinking

“If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ch 43
Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

Hate, World

“The backside of a mountain is a fight against human nature. You have to care as much about yourself on the way down as you did on the way up.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Way, Mountain, Nature

“I learned the bad guys are not always bad, the good guys are not always good, and to quote Captain Barbossa, the parameters are like rules, mostly guidelines. And that it takes a little bit of bad boy to fight the evil in the world.
--Terri Mitchell”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Phantom in the Night

World, Guy, Quotes, Boy

“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.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Love, Making love, Mood

“The fight isn't over until you win it, Fitz. That's all you have to remember. No matter what the other man says.”

Robin Hobb book Royal Assassin

Source: Royal Assassin

“And the seventh rule is if this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Night

“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Peace, Peaceful

“I fought against her, trying to mount some kind of defense, but it was like fighting Dimitri on crack.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

“The most dangerous flaws are those which are good in moderation," she said. "Evil is easy to fight. Lack of wisdom… that is very hard indeed.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Wisdom, Evil

“As it says in the Bible, God fights on the side with the heaviest artillery.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

God

“Stay.
Fight.
Live.
Take it.
Cry.
Cry.
Cry.”

James Frey (1969) American screenwriter and media presenter

Cry

“For a woman who can handle herself so well in a fight, I can’t believe you got taken out by a defenseless doorjamb. (Ravyn)
Given the size of my goose egg, I would argue the defenseless part. That doorjamb has a mean left hook.(Susan)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

Parting

“I was running from one problem or place to another, with no time left to study, or sleep, or just breathe. I felt pulled in all directions, fighting to keep all these obligations circling in the air above me. It was only a matter of time before something fell.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Problem, Sleep, Study, Time

“I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out.”

Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian

Game, Night, Hockey

“If love is great, then it is worth fighting for.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Love, For Wife

“Well, either you’ve been out fighting the forces of evil or you’ve come from a much wilder party than we have,” Jace said.
“Hello, there, Blackthorns.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Evil

“Yes, these are bruises from fighting and I'm okay with that.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

“Just because I don't deserve her doesn't mean I won't fight to keep her.”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: To Seduce a Sinner

“Look, I'll fight, too. What do you think it is? Bear, coyote…?"
"My brother."
"Your…" Dismay pooled in Mark. She'd just stepped over the line of acceptable craziness. "Oh.”

L.J. Smith book Daughters of Darkness

Source: Daughters of Darkness

Thinking

“Parabatai" said Jace. "It means a pair of warriors who fight together - who are closer than brothers. Alec is more than justmy best friend.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Doin' It Again, Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990)
Context: Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?

Freedom

“Mercy," he said,"in a fair fight between near equals, I'll back you every time. It's the demons, vampires, and river devils I worry about, and I'm working on that.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Time

“I’d seen him fight before, but it never got old. He was captivating. He never stopped moving. Every action was graceful and lethal. He was a dancer of death.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Death

“Fight your battles with words, not fists”

Ann M. Martin (1955) American writer of children's literature

“There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Life

“You fight so hard, so long, to cut someone out of your heart, but it’s not always your heart that betrays you.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Incubus Dreams

Source: Incubus Dreams

Heart

“That's weak! You don't know what caring is… Caring is love. And love fights! Love doesn't look for the path of least resistance. Hell's bells, Roderick, if love was that easy everyone would have it. You're a coward!”

Karen Marie Moning book To Tame a Highland Warrior

Source: To Tame a Highland Warrior

Love, Hell, Relationship

“Whatever storm was brewing, I'd find it and fight it. If it was the price of being with Curran, then I would pay it. He was worth it.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Truth, Understanding, Light

“I was too busy fighting the river to worry about adjusting my beliefs in accordance to reality.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Business, Reality

“Day
Play
We play all day.
Night
Fight
We fight all night.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Source: Hop On Pop

Night

“But you don't let true happiness slip out of your grasp without one helluva fight.”

Johanna Lindsey (1952–2019) American writer

Source: That Perfect Someone

Happiness

“One doesn’t let her fiancé fight a horde of ghouls by himself. Some things were just not done.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Shifts

“Roy remembered the time he and his father had a talk about fighting. 'It's important to stand up for what's right,' Mr. Eberhardt had said, 'but sometimes there's a fine line between courage and stupidity.”

Carl Hiaasen book Hoot

Source: Hoot

Stupidity, Courage, Time

“It’s good for you to think of this, son. Ponder. Worry. Stay up nights, frightened for the casualties of your ideology. It will do you good to realize the price of fighting.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Steelheart

Thinking, Night

“What does fighting crime mean, exactly? Does it mean upholding the law when a woman shoplifts to feed her children, or does it mean struggling to uncover the ones who, quite legally, have brought about her poverty?”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Children, Law

“When it's gone, you'll know what a gift love was. You'll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.”

Ian McEwan book Enduring Love

Source: Enduring Love

Love, Suffering

“Only a heathen would bring a gun to a sword fight.'

And only a moron would bring a sword to a gunfight.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

“For the future of the earth, We shall fight for it ~Nyan!~”

Mia Ikumi (1979) Japanese manga artist

Source: Tokyo Mew Mew, Vol. 1

Future

“You're a Dark-Hunter."
He kissed her lightly on the lips. "What I am is a man in love with a woman. I want you, Amanda. For the rest of my blessedly short mortal life. I want to wake at dawn with you in my arms and watch our children play and fight.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Love, Life, Children, Kiss

“It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Fear

“There are four things that make a man fight as you just did," the duke explained to Rumbold. "Love, despair, anger, or insanity."

Erik counted them off on his fingers. "Everything to lose, nothing to lose, someone's taken it, or you've lost it.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

Love, Despair, Anger

“Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in fight, searching the skies for dreams.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 18:

Dreams, Search, Bird

“There are some battles, no matter how much you don’t want to fight them, that you just have to fight. That are worth giving your life for.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

Life

“Fight with realistic
hope, not to destroy

all the world's wrong,
but to renew its good.”

Elizabeth Wein book Rose Under Fire

Source: Rose Under Fire

World, Hope

“Lust has less logic than love, sometimes, but it's easier to fight.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Killing Dance

Source: The Killing Dance

Love

“I thought about all the things I was suddenly able to do—like fight with a sword and summon a magical shell of armor. Those were not things I covered in home school.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

School, Home

“There is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

As quoted in Honor Your Gifts (2007) by Dona M. Deane, p. 199.
Variant: But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for

Life, Dreams, Suffering

“She was no longer a slow dreamer watching the flowers grow. She was a warrior now. Warriors need something to fight for though, beside their lives, because otherwise their lives will not be worth it.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Flowers

“Your heart is the size of your fist; keep loving, keep fighting.”

Ariel Gore (1970) American writer

Source: Atlas of the Human Heart

Love, Heart

“Fencing isn't really fighting. It's more like chess with the risk of puncture wounds”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

“I fight with love, and I laugh with rage.
You've gotta live light enough to see the humor,
And long enough to see some change.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Pick Yer Nose
Song lyrics

Love, Light, Rage, Change

“I used to think you were weak and just didn't fight back… but now, honestly, I think you're actually pretty tough. It takes a hell of a lot of strength to not complain and lash out.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Hell, Thinking

“In that moment she learnt one of the greatest secrets of life: It is often easier to fight for others than it is for yourself.”

David Clement-Davies book Fell

Source: Fell

Life, Secret

“You destroy buildings, fight monsters openly in the streets of the city, work with the police, show up in newspapers, advertise in the phone book, and ride zombie dinosaurs down Michigan Avenue, and think that you work in the shadows? Be reasonable.”

Jim Butcher book Skin Game

Source: Skin Game

Books, Thinking

“The whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there, that we experience our victories and defeats.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

Imagination, Victory

“Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared. […]It's slow. It rots out your guts.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Men, Failure

“You'd think that in a fight, NOT MOVING would be a bad habit!”

Scott Westerfeld (1963) American science fiction writer

Thinking

“Maryse: I am fighting for a better world for myself and my son.
Magnus: I have no interest in the world you want or in your doubteless repellent brat, I might add.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Last Stand of the New York Institute

World

“The best fights are the ones you don't have", a wise man once said to me.”

Lee Child book The Affair

Source: The Affair

“When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible cage.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Thinking, Sincerity

“Say, you told me you thoughtwas the greatest novel ever written. I thinkis the greatest. Let's fight. - Joe Willard”

Maud Hart Lovelace book Betsy and Joe

Source: Betsy and Joe

“Just remember, anger is always your enemy. You must keep your emotions in check. The moment you lose control of them, you lose the fight every time. (Takeshi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Time, Anger

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: The Candymakers

“Even if it’s dangerous, and painful, and so very, very lonely. One must go on fighting- It is the only honorable thing to do”

David Klass book You Don't Know Me

Source: You Don't Know Me

Pain

“Stand firm in the Lord. Stand firm and let Him fight your battle. Do not try to fight alone.”

Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind

Source: A Voice in the Wind

“A southern moon is a sodden moon, and sultry. When it swamps the fields and the rustling sandy roads and the sticky honeysuckle hedges in its sweet stagnation, your fight to hold on to reality is like a protestation against a first waft of ether.”

Zelda Fitzgerald book Save Me the Waltz

Source: Save Me the Waltz

Reality

“We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Peace

“Heroes aren't always the ones who win. They're the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Clary Fray, to Emma Carstairs, pg. 95
Variant: Heroes aren't always the ones who win. They're the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)

“I must fight with my weapons. Not his. Not selfishness and brutality and shame and resentment.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Selfishness

“What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: The Devil's Right Hand