The urge to excel and the urge to lead aren’t the same. Sometimes I think they may be opposites. - Kim Stanley Robinson

Maya was very insistent that they learn their math well. “You’re getting a horrible education,” she would say, shaking her head darkly. “But if you learn your math you can catch up later.”

How was it that destruction could be so beautiful? Was there something in the scale of it? Was there some shadow in people, lusting for it? Or was it just a coincidental combination of the elements, the final proof that beauty has no moral dimension?

It’s amazing what superstitions survive in fearful minds.