I sometimes think that the only thing in life that I find truly irresistible is the challenge to finagle something that everyone else says can’t be d… - Charles Sheffield

Darya was beginning to understand why she might be ruined forever for academic life. Certainly, the world of ideas had its own pleasures and thrills. But surely there was nothing to compete with the wonderful feeling of being alive, after knowing without a shadow of doubt that you would be dead in one second.

Is that what it takes to go all the way in politics? Ambition first, everything else back in the pack?
And if it is, would any sane human want to have what it takes?

Birdie cringed. If there was one thing worse than being a coward, it was being mistaken for a hero.