“Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and willfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.”

“I'm not a great believer in awards-of course the fact that I've never won one has nothing to do with it at all!”

“Though drones, avatars and even humans are one thing; the loss of any is not without moral and diplomatic import, of course, but might be dismissed as merely unfortunate and regrettable, something to be smoothed over through the usual channels. Attacking a ship, on the other hand, is an unambiguous act of war.”

“People were always sorry. Sorry they had done what they had done, sorry they were doing what they were doing, sorry they were going to do what they were going to do; but they still did whatever it is. The sorrow never stopped them; it just made them feel better. And so the sorrow never stopped.”

“One should never regret one's excesses, only one's failures of nerve.”

“Zakalwe, in all human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this simple fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots.”

“But what if someone kills somebody else?"Gurgeh shrugged. "They're slap-droned.""Ah! This sounds more like it. What does that drone do?""Follows you around and makes sure you never do it again.""Is that all?""What more do you want? Social death, Hamin; you don't get invited to too many parties.""Ah; but in your Culture, can't you gatecrash?""I suppose so," Gurgeh conceded. "But nobody'd talk to you.”