That is the true measure of love, you see, the evil one will stoop to for its sake... - Michael Swanwick

Tell me! What do you think of life? What do you think of ambition? What do you think of science, of learning, of love, of fame, of glory, of aspiration?"
"I think...that those are all very different things."
"You are wrong. They are all one thing—a cunt."
"Sir?"
"A cunt! Consider: The cunt is a nasty, ugly, filthy thing. Yet we desire it so greatly as to be willing to suffer any indignity to attain it. For the sake of it we labor and preen and whisper sugary words. We go to the theatre with flowers in our arms, climb over back walls by moonlight, write sonnets, jump out of windows with our trousers in our hands, give dangerous men their choice of weapons. We build love-nests for it sake, and cities, and civilizations. It is our all, our only, our ideal. It has created us and made us great. Such is life, such is ambition, such is science, learning, love, fame, glory, and aspiration. The Eternal Cunt," he said significantly, "draws us onward.

She was one of those people who discredited their own ideas by the force with which they argued them.

The problem was that when all you're trying to do is survive, the universe seems a cold and hostile place. We needed a purpose. To distract us from our awareness of being a single spark of human warmth in an infinite expanse of silence. One small candle in the infinite night of being."
"Do you really think science is purpose enough?"
"Yes, I do. I always have. Maybe it's because I was a lonely kid, and there were times that learning things was all that kept me going. The search for truth is not an unworthy reason to keep going."
"You make it sound so arbitrary."
"Maybe it is. Yet I persist in believing that knowledge is better than ignorance.