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There's really no fun in being sensible all the time, Diana.

“Death is in the nature of the universe, Barker. Death is only the operation of a mechanism. All the universe has been running down from the moment of its creation. Did you expect a machine to care what it acted upon? Death is like sunlight or a falling star; they don’t care where they fall. Death cannot see the pennants on a lance, or the wreath of glory in a dying man’s hand. Flags and flowers are the inventions of life. When a man dies, he falls into enemy hands—an ignorant enemy, who doesn’t merely spit on banners but who doesn’t even know what banners are. No ordinary man could stand to find that out. You found it out today. You sat in the laboratory and were speechless at the injustice of it. You’d never thought that justice was only another human invention.”

Emily already knew there was going to be hell to pay, and she supposed there was no use allowing it to accrue interest.

“Was he trying to frighten you?”

“I don’t think so,” said Len. “I think he was just telling me the truth.”

“Hell, how do you think the human race ever learned anything, except by trial and error?”

“But it all takes such a long, long time,” said Len.”

“Everything takes a long time. Birthing takes nine months, and dying takes you all the rest of your life, and what are you complaining about, anyway?”

“It is a great weakness of credomancers, Miss Edwards. They often believe their own press.”

”You’re a credomancer, too,” Emily said.

“I’m also a woman. Failure, struggle, and doubt are my constant companions. They are not always pleasant, but they inoculate me against overconfidence. As such, I would not trade them for all the arrogant bravado in the world.”

She was painfully aware that doing one’s best was never assurance that it wasn’t the wrong choice anyway.

“I thought they knew,” Len said. “I thought they were sure of it.”

“Research isn’t done that way.”

“But how can they spend all that time, and maybe that much more again, if they know it might be all for nothing?”

“Because how would they know if they didn’t try? And because there isn’t any other way to do it.”

Nothing is ever what you want it to be. The harder you grab for it, the more deeply it cuts. And it mocks you for being foolish enough to reach for it at all. You come to fear touching anything at all, because you know that if you do, it will become terrible.

“Will it always stay like this?”

“Nothing,” said Hostetter, “ever stays always like anything.”

“Credomancy may seek to exploit the human desire for a tidy narrative where an unblemished romantic hero vanquishes all obstacles, but such ideals have very little to do with reality. Reality requires pragmatism and compromise. Men fail. Women fail. There are no heroes, only human beings who somehow find the strength to behave heroically, no matter how many times they have been unable to do so in the past. If you understand that, Miss Edwards—if you truly and deeply understand that, then you will understand the most powerful thing anyone with a heart can understand.”

“And what’s that?” Emily said softly.

“That love is not enough. But it’s a start.”

There is a difference between not understanding and being willfully obtuse.