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“Let's leave it for tonight. Is it a decent hour for two middle-aged people to go to bed?' He held out his hand for her.

Half an hour later he exclaimed, 'My God, where did you learn that?'

'I read a book once,' she answered.

'Thank God for literate women,' he said fervently.”
― Kate Wilhelm, The Hamlet Trap

“We're living on the top of a pyramid,' he had said, 'supported by the massive base, rising above it, above everything that has made it possible. We're responsible for nothing, not the structure itself, not anything above us. We owe nothing to the pyramid, and are totally dependent on it. If the pyramid crumbles and returns to dust, there is nothing we can do to prevent it, or even to save ourselves. When the base goes, the top goes with it, no matter how elaborate the life is that developed there. The top will return to dust along with the base when the collapse comes. If a new structure is to rise, it must start at the ground, not on top of what has been built during the centuries past.”
― Kate Wilhelm