"Damn it," he mumbled apologetically, "things like this never happened to Vorthalia the Bold."

She raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "How do you know? The histories of those times were all written by minstrels and poets. You try and think of a word that rhymes with 'bleeding ulcer”

The key to strategy... is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory.

"Count Piotr's hand slapped down hard upon the table. "Good God, woman, where have you been?" he cried furiously.
A morbid lunacy overtook her. She smiled fiercely at him, and held up the bag. "Shopping."
For a second, the old man nearly believed her; conflicting expressions whiplashed over his face, astonishment, disbelief, then anger as it penetrated he was being mocked.
"Want to see what I bought?" Cordelia continued, still floating. She yanked the bag's top open, and rolled Vordarian's head out across the table. Fortunately, it had ceased leaking some hours back. It stopped faceup before him, lips grinning, drying eyes staring. - Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMasters Bujold

At the end of two days he found himself teetering atop a dizzying financial structure compounded of truth, lies, credit, cash purchases, advances on advances, shortcuts, a tiny bit of blackmail, false advertising, and yet another mortgage on some more of his glow-in-the-dark farmland.