Something in their history has moved them to patience. Wise leaders do not go to war with enemies, not even evil enemies, unless they have thought it… - Sheri S. Tepper

The Regime has become so smug it can't tell the difference among the revolutionary, the innovative, or the merely various. The high command knows so little about the outside that if I came back with a fully equipped chemical laboratory and told them I'd found it in a cave, they'd probably believe that, so long as I brought it back piecemeal in my saddle bags, thus proving I hadn't known it was there beforehand.

It was her way to start each conversation with an apology, so she could be offended when the apology was accepted.

and there upon the vast prairies, will be the fox. The mighty fox. The implacable fox. The fox who knows they are coming.