It only takes one nutcase to decide that you, not he, are the reason his life sucks, and set out to even the score. Nutcases are not in short supply … - Lois McMaster Bujold

“What a barbaric custom.”
“Well, we could treat crime as a disease, like you Betans. You know what that’s like. At least we kill a man cleanly, all at once, instead of in bits over the years….I don’t know.”
“How will they…do it?”
“Beheading. It’s supposed to be almost painless.”
“How do they know?”
His laugh was totally without humor. “A very cogent question.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” said Ivan.
“Definitely. I just don’t know what kind, yet. Or whose.”

I don't take information and experience into my mind in that organized a fashion, but when I want to bring it out, somehow it's there. You write what you know because — like there's another choice? The trick is to try and know as much as possible.