The Aeronaut's Windlass (The Cinder Spires, #1)

by Jim Butcher

We’re a civilized society, are we not?” Esterbrook blinked. “Since when, miss? We’re a democracy.”

“The heart of democracy is violence, Miss Tagwynn,” Esterbrook said. “In order to decide what to do, we take a count of everyone for and against it, and then do whatever the larger side wishes to do. We’re having a symbolic battle, its outcome decided by simple numbers. It saves us time and no end of trouble counting actual bodies—but don’t mistake it for anything but ritualized violence. And every few years, if the person we elected doesn’t do the job we wanted, we vote him out of office—we symbolically behead him and replace him with someone else. Again, without the actual pain and bloodshed, but acting out the ritual of violence nonetheless. It’s actually a very practical way of getting things done.”

Truth does not become untruth simply because its existence upsets the scion of a High House.”

Such hats often signified humans who considered themselves important, which was adorable for the first few moments and trying ever after.

It was a well-known fact that humans became more addled than usual when running in herds.

“It’s a tradition,” Grimm said. “Were traditions rational, they’d be procedures.”