And she actually looks—well, I’m not sure how to describe her. Scary is such an inadequate word, don’t you think? - Charles Stross

American cops are so heavily militarized these days that the only way I can tell the difference between them and the army is the color of their body armor—that, and the army is less trigger-happy.

Of course, the trouble with following occult texts blindly is that there is no guarantee that the thing the ritual summons is what it says on the label."
"But they're Christians. If you want to get them to raise something from the dungeon dimensions, of course you tell them it's Jesus Christ. I mean, who else would they enthusiastically dive into necromantic demonology on behalf of?"

People didn’t always follow their best interests. Human beings were distressingly bad at risk analysis, lousy with hidden motivations and neuroses, anything but the clean rational actors that economists or diplomats wanted so desperately to believe in, and diplomats had to go by capabilities, not intentions.