She grinned to herself. Safe. That sounded like a good plan. She should try that for a change. - James S. A. Corey

“We regret the necessity of this action,” she said to everyone everywhere. “But in the cause of freedom, there can be no compromise.” That’s what it’s come to, Miller thought, rubbing a hand across his chin. Pogroms after all. Cut off just a hundred more heads, just a thousand more heads, just ten thousand more heads, and then we’ll be free.

That’s the thing about autocracy. It looks pretty decent while it still looks pretty decent. Survivable, anyway. And it keeps looking like that right up until it doesn’t. That’s how you find out it’s too late.

He couldn’t fix the cancer of war, couldn’t even slow down the spread, but at least he could admit it was happening.