We need what we need. Judging ourselves doesn’t change it. Sometimes a hug and a cookie right now mean more than a grand gesture at some indeterminat… - Elizabeth Bear

Age had not yet defeated her on all fronts, though it was a war of attrition she knew she was fated to lose.

The old have nothing to pace themselves for, she’d say. This is the final sprint. Run. Run. See how far you can get before you fall.

"Cultural hegemony is based on conformity," he said, after a pause long enough that she had expected to go unanswered. "Siege mentality. Look at oppressed philosophies, religions—or religions that cast themselves as oppressed to encourage that kind of defensiveness. Logic has no pull. What the lizard brain wants, the monkey brain justifies, and when things are scary, anything different is the enemy. Can come up with a hundred pseudological reasons why, but they all boil down to one thing: if you aren't one of us, you're one of them."