Unless he was working from the wrong assumptions. He'd always imagined that he'd somehow earned his parents' love, but what if his sister's reception was proof that you began life not with a blank slate, devoid of either merit or blame, but with the kind of unblemished record that could only be marred? In that case, the best he could hope for would be to slip no further while he waited for her to fall as far.
-greg egan, teranesia