Ari

“Whatever you're thinking of. Just don't. I don't want anything to do with it."
"What I was about to say," said Miles, giving him an extremely dry look, "was that we, being on the side of truth and justice, need not stoop to such chicanery as, say, bribery, assassination or milder forms of physical diversion, or—heh!—blackmail. ...
"If we're not stooping, what do you call that shell game with the Vortugalovs and the uterine replicator?" Ivan demanded indignantly.
"A piece of wholly unexpected good fortune. None of us here had anything to do with it," Miles replied tranquilly.
"So it's not a dirty trick if it's untraceable?"
"Correct, Ivan. You learn fast.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead