I have no need to expose myself to your flummery," Mette said with dignity. "I believe in order that I may know. I do not know in order to believe." … - Michael Swanwick

So whose side are you on? You have to choose."
"I'm not going to be on anybody's side anymore," she said. "Sides are stupid.

“We’ll be taking out the front gate and the Time Clock, and blasting the Goddess Stone to gravel.” She felt wild, free, vengeful, obscene—unstoppable. “Serving the Bitch notice.” She knew that there was no Goddess, save as a metaphor for what was otherwise inconceivable, that the forces they were going up against were as impersonal as they were vast. But it felt more satisfying this way.

In some ways she was not a very good scientist: impatient with data, too ready to leap to conclusions, apt to judge an idea not by its merits but by its sheer niftiness.