Don’t underestimate the viciousness of academics when funding is at stake. - Lois McMaster Bujold

"It’s just a thing. You deal with it."
"As in, one damn thing after another?"
"Yes, very like."

[Ivan: ] ”... you haven't let the lack of half-marks stop you. Or the rules. Or respect for reality, as afar as I can tell.”

[Miles:] ”I never let anything stop me. That's how you get what you want, Ivan. No one's going to just hand it to you.

We lords, at our oars, then? We sweating, pissing, swearing, grunting gentlemen? I think not, Palli. On the galleys we were not lords or men. We were men or animals, and which proved which had no relation I ever saw to birth or blood. The greatest soul I ever met there had been a tanner, and I would kiss his feet right now with joy to learn he yet lived. We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the gods — all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now.