Around her gulps of water, she repeated her prayer, until the monotony and futility silenced her. - Greg Bear

That was the myth and I admit I found it attractive. I still do. It’s been said that a romantic is someone who never accepts the evidence of her eyes and ears.

Life on earth is hard. Competition for the necessities of life is fierce. How ridiculous to believe that the law of harsh survival would not be true elsewhere, or that it would be negated by the progress of technology in an advanced civilization...

11. “Nobody’s ever satisfied with what they have?”
“Not in human experience; not at the level of governments, nations, or planets.”