Still, Claire hated Charlotte Brontë’s comment that she would have given all her talent to be beautiful. That… — 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.

She stood up. “Professional? Ha! My father used to say, you have to be able to tell a tracheotomist from a cutthroat. Well, I can.”