Pete is clearly mildly perturbed by this, as so he should be: his faith doesn’t have much room for sanguinary magic, unless you count holy communion. - Charles Stross

The iron law of bureaucracy doesn’t help: everybody working to ensure that the organization continues to pay them a salary, rather than necessarily achieving its objectives.

It was an okay vintage, if you could get past the fact that it was wine, and—stripped of the ability to get drunk on it—wine was just sour grape juice.

I was hoping you might be able to help me with a question of character."
"Character." Angleton doesn't seem at all put out by Lockhart's refusal; he leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "There's a word I don't hear often enough these days. Especially coming from you."
"Of course not." Lockhart is dismissive. "It's a subjective value judgment and those don't sit comfortably with ticky-boxes and objective performance metrics."