Sins of the Flesh. Colleen McCullough

she said as she lifted bundle after bundle of files out of the safe, “is an expression of the complexity in a brain. Like the verb ‘want.’ An animal can indicate want by making some physical movement or gesture of vocalization aimed at want fulfilment. ‘I want it!’ Only a human can actually say it, including indications of the degree of want, the specific kind of want, the niche want occupies. Without moving any muscles except those of the lips and tongue and upper airway. How do the pathways open up between an infant’s saying ‘I want!’ and a mature adult’s saying ‘I want, but I can’t have my want because to take it would destroy someone else’s superior entitlement to it?’”

      Her voice died to a mutter. “What, in the pathways to maturation, can possibly overcome the most primal urge of all—want? Oh, Jess, there is an answer, and you’re the one will find that answer, you are, you are!”

      It was a big office, and well furnished, but she hadn’t lit the overhead fluorescents, just flicked on the green-shaded lamp goosenecked to her desk; the room’s far corners were plunged into utter darkness, and unexpected shadows lurked, shook, trembled whenever the worker at the desk changed position. Something in Jess loved this encroaching blackness—as if she, and she alone, held it at bay; it was a harmless demonstration of power, and, being harmless, could be condoned. Mindless power—now that was something else again, never to be condoned.