[Warning, heavy edit follows]

"In ancient history human sacrifices were made on a hill above a river.
Thousands of people.  The sacrifices were made and the bodies were burned
on a pyre.  Rain fell on the burnt pyre year after year and year after
year, people were burned, and the rain seeped through the wood ashes
to become a solution of lye, and the lye combined with the melted fat
of the sacrifices and a thick white discharge of soap crept out from
the base of the alter and crept downhill toward the river.  Where the
soap fell into the river, after a thousand years of killing people and
rain, the ancient people found their clothes got cleaner if they washed
at that spot.  It was right to kill all those people.  You have to see
how the first soap was made of heroes.  Think about the animals used in
product testing.  Think about the monkeys shot into space.  Without their
death, their pain, without their sacrifice, we would have nothing."

 -- Heavily editied quote from 'Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk