" So what if it’s Achilles’ mother who can have a son that’s greater than its father? What if it’s Io, too? What if it’s any girl, every girl? Any woman? Every woman, Anna. Sure and can’t any son be greater than his father? Isn’t that what it’s all about, what makes us all go on? Ye can’t look at the sheer bloody-minded defiance of a wee babe screaming its lungs out at the terrible injustice of the world and not have hope. Every generation of us, all born kicking up a racket, revels every one of us. So who’s the son— the child— that’s greater than its father? I’ll tell ye who it is, Anna.

Humanity. "

― Hal Duncan , Vellum (The Book of All Hours, #1)