Acceptance (Southern Reach, #3)

by Jeff VanderMeer

“We never had anyone who lived long enough in Area X or saw so clearly and managed to write down their observations.” Conflicting data, conflicting purposes. An opponent that didn’t make it easy.

“The critical question,” Grace said, “is what is the purpose of this organism or organisms. And how do we survive.”

“An organism can have a purpose and yet also make patterns that have little to do with that purpose.”

You could know the what of something forever and never discover the why.

The allure of the island lay in its negation of why—both for the biologist and, Ghost Bird guessed, for Grace, who had lived here with this knowledge for almost three years, as it ate at her.