Steve Perry Quotes on Death & Dying (2 Quotes)

If you are going to deal in death, you should be willing to see the truth of it, not some glorious lie. If I have a battle with another sword player, it is between the two of us, our business, our truth. But if you run a planet and you get pissed off at somebody the next orbit over, you each might send a million soldiers to recycling plants. A smart rocket can come from a thousand klicks away to kill you it doesn't care and it won't be in the least upset that it has blasted you to atomic debris. That's the real horror of modern war, that it is impersonal. Being cut with a sword hurts, and if you are close enough to do it, you can't miss the other's pain.

If you shoot a man across a field or even a room, you don't get the full impact of what you've done. Facing an opponent one-on- one, hand-to-hand or with a sword, you have to accept your personal responsibility. Killing somebody ought to be messy. You should be sprayed with his blood, you should be able to hear him scream, catch the death rattle, smell the faeces and urine as the bowels and bladder let go. You should have to dispose of the body. So you know exactly what it was you did.