The fourth approved approach for the problem of frontally attacking a guarded wormhole was to shoot the officer who suggested it. - Lois McMaster Bujold

“You think he’s a genius?” she said, raising her eyebrows. The high Vor twit?”
“I don’t know him quite well enough, yet. But I suspect so, a part of the time.”
“Can you be a genius part of the time?”
“All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters.”

There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That’s soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.

What is it about you people who run sexually segregated fleets that makes you all disembark insane? No, don’t bother answering that, I think we all know. But the all-male military organizations who have that custom for religious or cultural reasons all come onto station leave like some horrible combination of kids let out of school and convicts let out of prison. The worst of both, actually—the judgment of children combined with the sexual deprivation of—never mind.