The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency, #2)

by John Scalzi

Lenson was also aware that the cynical could afford the luxury of their cynicism because of the stability of the system they mocked.

When a lie has negative consequences, people dislike it. But otherwise? They move on, and eventually the lie as a lie is forgotten, or in this case, codified as the foundation of religious practice and buffed and sanded into something prettier and more congenial.

she was about as qualified to be emperox as Assan was qualified to juggle knives)

If you juggle knives this is really funny

This was a conservative man, Nadashe could see, and not in the useful way of being cautious but practical and deliberate. He simply wanted things done the way he wanted them done, which was the way they had always been done.