Frances Hardinge

"My mother is not evil, Faith reminded herself. She is just a perfectly sensible snake, protecting her eggs and making her way in the world as best she can."

"So what do you wants" asked Myrtle."I want to help evolution."Evolution did not fill Faith with the same horror her father had felt. Why should she weep to hear that nothing was set in stone? Everything could change. Everything could get better. Everything was getting better, inch by inch, so slowly that she could not see it, but knowing it gave her strength."

"And perhaps some other later girl, leafing through her father's library, would come across a footnote in an academic journal and read the name 'Faith Sunderly.' Faith? she would think. That is a female name. A woman did this. If that is so...then so can I. And the little fire of hope, self-belief and determination would pass to another heart."

"Zeal was like gas, most dangerous when you could not see it. The wrong spark could light it at any time."