She stood up. “Professional? Ha! My father used to say, you have to be able to tell a tracheotomist from a… — Gregory Benford

This was what never failed to stir her—the unfathomable gulf between today’s thinking and the way the ancients thought. They were truly alien, not merely innocent agrarians with a foolish faith.

Just because something’s crazy, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Still, Claire hated Charlotte Brontë’s comment that she would have given all her talent to be beautiful. That condemned you always to play somebody else’s game—and, when your looks failed—finally to lose.