> "Your birthday was the seventeenth of last month, in point of fact." > "I missed it anyway, then." He closed the bag and stuffed the uniform far back in his

> "Your birthday was the seventeenth of last month, in point of fact." > "I missed it anyway, then." He closed the bag and stuffed the uniform far back in his closet. "Not important." > "It’s important that someone celebrate our existence," she objected amiably. "People are the only mirror we have to see ourselves in. The domain of all meaning. All virtue, all evil, are contained only in people. There is none in the universe at large. Solitary confinement is a punishment in every human culture." -- Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold