This is the price you must pay for knowledge: You must understand and acknowledge its consequences. - Michael Swanwick

Everything was dying, yet death did not suffice. Life had hidden resources. In a thousand ways it was concentrating strength, hoarding its energies in seed, chrysalis, and nectar, preparing for the warrior sweep out of exile that would undo the defeat of winter. Spring was implicit.

It was the kind of discovery that shatters old universes and opens up new ones in their place.

(All human beings have their price, and quite often it is surprisingly small. The trick consists of knowing exactly what that price is, when they themselves do not.)