Censorship is never logical but, like cancer, it is dangerous to ignore it when it shows up. - Robert A. Heinlein

“Jim?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“What’s this about leaving your gun where the baby could reach it?”
Jim flushed. “It wasn’t charged, Dad.”
“If all the people who had been killed with unloaded guns were laid end to end it would make quite a line up. You are proud of being a licensed gun wearer, aren’t you?
“Uh, yes, sir.”
“And I’m proud to have you be one. It means you are a responsible, trusted adult. But when I sponsored you before the Council and stood up with you when you took your oath, I guaranteed that you would obey the regulations and follow the code, wholeheartedly and all the time—not just most of the time. Understand me?”
“Yes, sir. I think I do.”

She grabbed him by both ears and kissed him quickly, then ran away.
Don stared after her, rubbing his mouth. Girls, he reflected, were much odder than dragons. Probably another race entirely.

There is no such thing as luck; there is only adequate or inadequate preparation to cope with a statistical universe.