To be Radchaai is to be civilised.

- Ann Leckie

Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It's just easier to handle…

- Ann Leckie

Let every act be just, and proper, and beneficial.

- Ann Leckie

What, after all, was the point of civilisation if not the well-being of citizens?

- Ann Leckie

Translator Dlique was saying, very earnestly, “Eggs are so inadequate, don't you think? I mean, they ought to be able to become anything, but instead…

- Ann Leckie

It's the people without the money and the power, who desperately want to live, for those people small things aren't small at all.

- Ann Leckie

When one is the agent of order and civilisation in the universe, one doesn't stoop to negotiate. Especially with nonhumans.

- Ann Leckie

Things happen the way they happen because the world is the way it is.

- Ann Leckie

If there was anything any Radchaai considered essential for civilised life, it was tea.

- Ann Leckie