Falling didn't bother me. I could fall forever and not be hurt. It's stopping that's the problem.

If there was anything any Radchaai considered essential for civilised life, it was tea.

When one is the agent of order and civilisation in the universe, one doesn't stoop to negotiate. Especially with nonhumans.

Or is anyone's identity a matter of fragments held together by convenient or useful narrative, that in ordinary circumstances never reveals itself as a fiction? Or is it really a fiction?

What, after all, was the point of civilisation if not the well-being of citizens?

Good necessitates evil and the two sides of that disk are not always clearly marked.

Let every act be just, and proper, and beneficial.