Epigraph

By God, if women had but written stories

Like those the clergy kept in oratories,

More had been written of men’s wickedness

Than all the sons of Adam could redress.

—The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Neville Coghill

* * *

The wisest man in the world is one who doesn’t care who’s in charge.

— Attributed to Ptolemy