(Powers, Goldbug Variations, pp608-609)

"I can understand... I can see how one might not be able to trap certain feelings off in a side panel. I mean, I can see how, if the attraction, if the need were large enough....that a person might choose to go on caring, as if..."
"As if it still counted?"
"I can understand the torch-bearing. Celibacy. Self-denial... But... it seems to me the worst hurt anyone could possibly have inflicted on you, shouldn't have been enough to... to make you give up science."

(read "literature" where it says "science.")