Ninety percent of life was being there, and the rest was being there on time. - Pat Cadigan

I pushed her back hard. “You don’t belong with them; you’re not special, you have no place in any unseen world; you’re like me and the rest of our family. Get used to it!”
She looked at me like I’d slapped her.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, feeling equally stung by her reaction. “It’s hell being ordinary, but that’s the human condition.”

I said, What are you, a federal employee or just a freelance zombie?

That was the real price, I thought. Once you had power, you ended up having to depend on it. Eventually, like anything else, it owned you.
Eventually? No, from the beginning; we just don’t bother admitting it at first.