"Be grateful. I’ve taught you a valuable lesson. Most people never do learn exactly how much they will do to stay alive."
Michael Swanwick is an American fantasy and science fiction author who began publishing in the early 1980s.
"“Now why on Earth would you tell him a thing like that?” “Because it’s true.” Sbrulius laughed. “That, dear Faust, is the single worst argument you could have raised. Many things are true. Few are proper. Fewer still are desirable.”"
"Urban life was thus founded upon the principle of deliberately confounding those who were not a part of it. Civilization was a strategy of exclusion."
"Second chances were so rare in this world to be almost miracles."
"Time was a flickering gray fire constantly consuming all things, so that what appeared to be motion was actually the oxidation and reduction of possibilities, the collapse of potential matter from grace to nothingness."
"Indeed, what is magic but impossible science?"
"“Surely,” he cried, “this is not inevitable. Surely humanity could take the knowledge you offer and use it to ennoble itself. Surely they could apply it wisely and without folly.” “They could,” Mephistopheles said dryly. “But will they?”"