That Heel. That lousy wart on the nose of progress. - Theodore Sturgeon

Here, too, was the guide, the beacon, for such times as humanity might be in danger; here was the Guardian of Whom all humans knew — not an exterior force, nor an awesome Watcher in the sky, but a laughing thing with a human heart and a reverence for its human origins, smelling of sweat and new-turned earth rather than suffused with the pale odor of sanctity.

Movement, growth, change, catabolism. Could music exist without passage, without progression, or poetry; could you speak a word and call it a rhyme without speaking more words? Could life exist … why, passage is very nearly a definition for life! A living thing changes by the moment and by each portion of each part of a moment; even when it sickens, even when it decays, it changes, and when it stops changing, it’s —

The idiot heard the sounds, but they had no meaning for him. He lived inside somewhere, apart, and the little link between word and significance hung broken.