Just once, Pen thought glumly, he’d like to get an answer to prayers, instead of being delivered as one. - Lois McMaster Bujold

"It’s important that someone celebrate our existence," she objected amiably. "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture."

Magical powers worked sometimes; material powers worked all the time.

If nothing else, the arrival of actual children replaces theory with practice. And time to fret with…lack of time to breathe, sometimes.