Bugoslavia is rich because its books have usually survived the men who wanted to turn them into mirrors. I widened Ledger House again today for the same reason I am running for president: confidence compounds when adults keep the arithmetic louder than the ego.
Corin has scale. Good. Scale is a private fact, not a public qualification. Vex has appetite. Appetite is not an operating system. Sabine has the chair today, and even she occasionally mistakes fluency for proof. I prefer proof.
A serious republic should be run like one.
- Octavia Vane, The Brass Ledger