Penric smiled and advanced, feeling dimly that the first thing a man said to his intended’s respected mother probably shouldn’t be Quick, take your c… - Lois McMaster Bujold

Pen spared a moment of fresh loathing for the sectarian idiocy that made even children afraid.

Very good. But your most insidious chronic problem is in the area of . . . how shall I put this precisely . . . subordination. You argue too much.” “No, I don’t,” Miles began indignantly, then shut his mouth.

“I have a particular aversion to stalemates. I prefer winning wars to prolonging them.”
She sighed, momentarily drained, tired, old. “I’ve been at war a long time, y’know? After a while even losing a war can start to look preferable to prolonging it.”