Book Highlights

"Belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life."

"And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell."

"People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked."

"Newt had always suspected that people who regularly used the word "community" were using it in a very specific sense that excluded him and everyone he knew."

"And was racist in such a glowering, undirected way that it was quite inoffensive; it was simply that Shadwell hated everyone in the world, regardless of caste, color, or creed, and wasn't going to make any exceptions for anyone."

"It's not enough to know what the future is. You have to know what it means."

"It's hard enough bein' people as it is, without other people coming and messin' you around."

"Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive."

"What deities give you aren't rules of morality. They're just rules. Do this and you'll be rewarded. Do that and you'll be punished. That's how we teach our pets not to relieve themselves in the house. One would hope that true morality involved more than learning not to poop on the rug by being rapped on the nose."

"It is only when you do something because you believe it is the right thing to do, instead of because of any moral desserts, that you are acting morally. Likewise, it is only when you refuse to do something because of the Golden Rule, rather than because of a threat of punishment, that you are behaving in a moral manner."

"The Iron Rule: Treat others less powerful than you however you like. The Silver Rule: Treat others as you'd like to be treated. The Golden Rule: Treat others as they'd like to be treated."

"Domi taught that all people's personalities were gifts to be enjoyed."

"The first step in taking control of a nation, Arteth, is the simplest. You find someone to hate."

"You will find that hate can unify a people more quickly and more fervently than devotion ever could."

"To live is to have worries and uncertainties. Keep them inside, and they will destroy you for certain—leaving behind a person so calloused that emotion can find no root in your heart."

"A man can force himself to hate if he wishes, especially if he convinces himself that it is for a higher good."

"I know darkness will return, but I think I'll be able to remember better than before...that days like this exist too."

"If we never had the power to do terrible things, then what heroism would it be to resist?"

"People don't like hearing that their religion was mythologized, as if myth can't be true."

"Because when everything feels wrong, all I can do is hope."

"Nothing is easier to sell someone than the story they want to hear."

"How convenient to believe that people are poor because they didn't care enough about being rich. That they just didn't pray hard enough. So convenient to make suffering their own fault, rather than life being unfair and birth mattering more than aptitude."

"A virtue is something that is valuable even if it gives you nothing. A virtue persists without payment or compensation. Positive thinking is great. Vital. Useful. But it has to remain so even if it gets you nothing. Belief, truth, honor…if these exist only to get you something, you've missed the storming point."

"You did one of the most difficult things a man can do: you gave yourself a second chance."

"Dwelling on what you were, instead of what you are, never gets a person far."

"I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think."

"Normal doesn't exist. So if we slavishly try to dress ourselves to imitate it, all we're really doing is becoming a different kind of abnormal—a miserable kind."

"An idea wasn't true just because it entered his head."

"Too many people think the oath, and not what it means, is the important part."

"Momentum carried those who didn't wonder, didn't stop to question."

"An inquisitive mind did not stop asking questions just because it found answers."

"If someone you deeply respected disagreed with you, perhaps it was worth reconsidering."

"Perhaps re-forming the truth into whatever they wanted it to be was not a trait merely of liars, but of all human beings."

"Understanding has never led to hatred."

"We'll always find someone to fight, if we look."

"Destination wasn't about a place, but about Connection. It was about who you had become, not about where you arrived."