Naqi suspected that the ability to turn drunkenness on and off like a switch must be one of the most hallowed of diplomatic skills. - Alastair Reynolds

So you've no qualms." "Qualms?" Merlin set down the papers he had been leafing through. "I've so many qualms they're in danger of self-organizing. I occasionally have a thought that isn't a qualm. But I'll tell you this. Sometimes you just have to do the obvious thing. They have an item I need, and there's a favor I can do for them. It's that simple. Not everything in the universe is a riddle.

The air crackled with rivalry and the potential for swift backstabbing.
Geoffrey hadn’t sensed anything like it since his last academic conference.

I was born in a house with a million rooms, built on a small, airless world on the edge of an empire of light and commerce that the adults called the Golden Hour, for a reason I did not yet grasp.