Her rank was higher than his, so high that no one in her family worked productively. - Poul Anderson

I’m afraid I’m not a convert or anything. I still see the same blind cosmos governed by the same blind laws. But suddenly it matters. It matters terribly, and means something. What, I haven’t figured out yet. I probably never will. But I have a reason for living, or for dying if need be. Maybe that’s the whole purpose of life: purpose itself. I can’t say. But I expect to enjoy the world a lot more.

Something as biologically fundamental as death ought to be in the very fabric of evolution virtually from the beginning.

Everard sighed, switched off his conscience, and began lying.