Favorite Book Quotes (An Ever Growing List)

*solitude, extended for a sufficiently long period of time, becomes its own reward and nourishment. A weary souls voice aloud can become repugnant to its own ears, and for years these had been the only voices he had heard, and spoken back to, until they had become his own voice." --Couldsplitter

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true. -Nathanial Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

*I'm going to drag you kicking and screaming fighting you all the way into the GOOD side of life, whether you like it or not, cause that's just how I roll." -- The Lord, spoken to me many years ago.

No knowledge can be of more use to a young person than the knowledge of himself; no study can be more valuable to him than a study of himself. - WILLIAM HENRY PYLE PROFESSOR OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY   UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI; Human Nature, A psychology for Beginners

I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and keeps only their quintessences. This is an unspeakable torture during which he needs all his faith and superhuman strength, and during which he becomes the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed – and the great learned one! – among men. – For he arrives at the unknown! Because he has cultivated his own soul – which was rich to begin with – more than any other man! He reaches the unknown; and even if, crazed, he ends up by losing the understanding of his visions, at least he has seen them! Let him die charging through those unutterable, unnameable things: other horrible workers will come; they will begin from the horizons where he has succumbed! - Rimbaud, in a letter to Paul Demeny, 15th May 1871

Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity Kitai. Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice. We are all telling ourselves a story and that day mine changed. - Will Smith, playing Cypher Raige, After Earth

“Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit.” -Shannon Alder

“I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.” ― Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat

“Love...no such thing. Whatever it is that binds families and married couples together, that's not love. That's stupidity or selfishness or fear. Love doesn't exist. Self interest exists, attachment based on personal gain exists, complacency exists. But not love. Love has to be reinvented, that’s certain.” ― Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat

“I understand, and not knowing how to express myself without pagan words, I’d rather remain silent” ― Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat

“In the morning I had a look so lost, a face so dead, that perhaps those whom I met did not see me.” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“I is another.” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.” ― Arthur Rimbaud, Une saison en enfer; Illuminations; et autres textes

“Come from forever, and you will go everywhere.” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.” ― Arthur Rimbaud, Une saison en enfer; Illuminations; et autres textes

If the old imbeciles hadn’t discovered only the false significance of Self, we wouldn’t have to now sweep away those millions of skeletons which have been piling up the products of their one-eyed intellect since time immemorial, and claiming themselves to be their authors!” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“He would say, "How funny it will all seem, all you've gone through, when I'm not here anymore, when you no longer feel my arms around your shoulders, nor my heart beneath you, nor this mouth on your eyes, because I will have to go away some day, far away..." And in that instant I could feel myself with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness: into death.” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“...these poets here, you see, they are not of this world:let them live their strange life; let them be cold and hungry, let them run, love and sing: they are as rich as Jacques Coeur, all these silly children, for they have their souls full of rhymes, rhymes which laugh and cry, which make us laugh or cry: Let them live: God blesses all the merciful: and the world blesses the poets.” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“Is it in these bottomless nights that you sleep in exile?” --Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat

A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down.” ― Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat

“It was the voice of mad seas, roaring immense,/ That shattered your infant breast, too soft, too human.” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“La vraie vie est absente. Nous ne sommes pas au monde.” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.” ― William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

“سعارُ اليأس يدفع بي في وجه كل شيء: الطبيعة، الأشياء، أنا نفسي، هذا كله الذي أريد أنا تمزيقه” ― Arthur Rimbaud

“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.” ― William Blake

“My mother groaned, my father wept, into the dangerous world I leapt.” ― William Blake

“Better to shun the bait than struggle in the snare.” ― William Blake

“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.” ― William Blake

“When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.” ― William Blake

“How can the bird that is born for joy  Sit in a cage and sing?” - William Blake

“You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.” ― William Blake

"Never be angry when fools behave like fools. It's better when fools identify themselves. It removes so much uncertainty." - Orson Scott Card, Wyrms

"The king cares only for the good of the kings house. But the king's house is all the world." - Orson Scott Card, Wyrms

"Father told me once,"' she said. "There are two ways to rule human beings. One is to convince the people that if they do not obey they and those they love will be destroyed. The other is to earn the love of the people. And he told me where these two ways lead. Eventually, the course of terror leads to revolution and anarchy. Eventually, the course of flattery leads to contempt and anarchy.""So he believes no power can last?""No. Because there is a third way. It looks like the course of love sometimes, and sometimes it looks like the course of terror.""Back and forth between the two? The people wouldn't know you then, and none would follow you.""No. It isn't back and forth between anything. It's a straight and steady course. The course of magnanimity. Greatness of heart.""It means nothing to me. One of the cardinal virtues but the priests don't even know what it means.""To love your people so much that you would sacrifice anything for the good of the whole. Your own life, your own family, your own happiness. And then you expect the same from them." - Orson Scott Card, Wyrms

Angel took great delight in teaching Patience to go to the heart of an argument and find its weak place. Then she would confront the would-be philosopher and skewer him publicly. She didn't do it often, but enjoyed knowing that she could, whenever she liked. Learn something? Not at the School. It wasn't learning she was after anyway. It was freedom. - Orson Scott Card, Wyrms

"The most perfect disguise is to change from one sex to another, for when they are searching for a girl, all boys are invisible to them." -Orson Scott 

"I must not fear.  Fear is the mind-killer.  Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my fear.  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.  And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.  Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.  Only I will remain."  - Frank Herbert, Dune, The Litany of Fear






The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The God of Small Things Quotes (showing 1-30 of 238)

“And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.” 
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“But what was there to say?
Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief.
Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.” 
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house—the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture—must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.” 
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

Before Marriage

STOP and THINK about these things BEFORE you get married.
TIPS ON CHOOSING THE RIGHT PERSON.
Look at your partner, and while you go through this list, pretend. Get your mind TRULY into the scenarios exactly as they are described. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED ANY YEAH BUT'S, NO THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN OR IT WON'T BE THAT WAY, NOT FOR THIS EXERCISE. Also, think about 10 years ago. THAT is a DECADE. Now count out how many of those you have left to your life. Think about the AMOUNT OF TIME, AND BE AWARE THAT YOU ARE MAKING THIS DECISION FOR HOWEVER MANY YOU HAVE LEFT (AVERAGE LIFE SPAN IS 70-90 YEARS, FOR THIS PURPOSE YOU WILL LIVE TO 90) SO you will thik of that date, and think, if you are 30, the time that I am committing to this person under these circumstances is 6 times that amount of time.
1. Your partner has been in a terrible accident, if it is a HE, he has become PERMANANTLY impotent. if it is a SHE, she has shattered her pelvis, and the damage has permanently rendered her unable to have sex. Their face has been badly burned, and as such, their looks are no longer there, AND oral sex is out of the question.
DO you still choose your partner for life?
2. Your partner has lost their job. They will never work again.
3. You do not have children, and you are not married. There is no "my child's father" or "I promised" to fall back on. In other words, whatever things you tell yourself, I have kids with this person so I am committed, or I made a vow so I am committed, get rid of ALL of that. Do you still want your partner for life, 6 times the time frame of your decade, also with the above conditions?
4. The man or woman that your heart secretly wants to find and fall in love with, your dream partner, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, your imaginary other half that you secretly hope crosses your path and you and them fall in love, WILL cross your path and fall in love with you. Not might, WILL. Do you still choose your partner, forsaking your dream lover, WITH ALL OF THESE CONDITIONS STILL IN PLACE?
5. Everything that you do not like about your partner, all of the little irritations, the things that annoy you or piss you off, they WILL NOT CHANGE, PERIOD. THESE THINGS ARE SET IN STONE, AND THEY WILL NOT CHANGE AT ALL FOREVER. IF ANYTHING, THESE NEGATIVE QUIRKS WILL GET WORSE OVER TIME.
Do you still choose your partner, with all of the above in place?
To sum this up, your partners financial value, job title, everything he or she owns materially is GONE, PERMANENTLY. Their looks, and ability to have sex are gone, permanently. You have no vow, promise to God or each other, no kids to bind you, ONLY love. Your dream partner will walk into your life and you will have to choose, your partner or them. Your partner will never change ANYTHING you don't like forever. DO you still choose your partner, for 6 times (for a 30 year old) the amount of time from your decade mark? IF for any of the above reasons you answered NO, OR you said YES because that will never happen, in your mind OR in your heart, YOU DO NOT LOVE YOUR PARTNER FOR THE RIGHT REASONS, AND YOU ARE A SITTING DUCK, YOUR RELATIONSHIP WILL NOT LAST, AND IF IT DOES, IT WILL LAST BECAUSE YOU AND HIM ARE SETTLING FOR EACH OTHER.

The Tattoo Debate, and Thoughts on Love Born From It

So I have been kicking around the idea of a tattoo, rather 3, and maybe it's a bad idea.

But I am not the type to look back with regret and erase a significant part of my life in my heart.

Since 2014 I have had the fortune of Whisper, M., and Faith being huge parts of my life and heart. So I was kicking around the idea of getting the words M., Faith, Whisper tattood on my breastbone, over my heart, because I don't see myself, even if ways are parted and relationshps end, looking back regretting this part of my life.

However, at the same time, I see why it might be something that is controversial and possibly causes issues later in my life. The thing is, I am not one to throw away from my memory and heart a person that matters deeply in my life, so I don't see why I would reget it in 60 years.

People choose one of two things I find. They love a person selflessly, greatly, and things end and suddenly, they pretend that person never mattered to them at all and try to forget them and throw them away. This is lying to yourself. Because if that person DID NOT MATTER then why were you with them for so long and why did they matter to you at that time in your life? Did they stop mattering, or is it that we are cowards that can't carry our own truth, all of it, both the love and the price of it, for life?

Personally, I don't see why I personally would regret this. I chose long ago to carry both the love that I have in my life, and the cost of it without condition or regret.

But I see where people in my life later might not like it.

To them I say this, say I am in a relationship with YOU, a loving, trusting, meaningful one. If it were YOU that I were forgetting, throwing away like you never mattered, you that I wanted to whipe from my memory,pretend like the time or bond meant nothing, how does THAT sound?

Then why should I whipe out from my life the people that have mattered, and have been a part of myself, and pretend that that is a lie?

Most people can take the good, but can not accept and carry a price for it.

Loving someone is one of the most significant parts of our lives.

But we have this thing that if it costs us, forget it, throw it away. The truth is, despite the price, it DOES matter, it's just that many of us don't want to take both the love and the price, we want the love, but not the cost.

The real question we have to face, is if we have a connection to someone, IS THAT PERSON WORTH THE PRICE? IF you can not look at your lover, and know the price of losing them, and in your heart fully know that they are worth whatever comes, YOU SHOULD NOT BE WITH THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE

Just my thoughts on the matter. I do see both sides, why it is maybe a not so great idea, and why it night be a good idea. But for me in my life, to EVER, look back and for once second try to say that this piece of my life did not matter and does not, that is a lie, that will always be a lie, that is a coward unable to face the price of loving, and that is not who I am, because the people I have loved, without self, without regret, DO matter, and WILL matter. I will not look back later and lie to myself and say they didn't for the sake of bitterness or the avoidance of loss or price. I chose to accept loss and price equally with that love in my life the moment that I chose to give that place in my life.

M. has earned a brand, Faith has earned a brand, Whisper has earned a brand. They are a part of myself for life, no matter what time brings. That I refuse to regret or forget. If they have mattered to me as they have for the time they have, then I choose to acknowledge that, NOT until it isn't convenient, but to honor that truth.

You can not love someone and take half of them, the good but not the bad, the time you have but not the price. That is not all in love without self. That is selfish taking of what YOU need. it is not my way. They have eanred that from me, and I will not look back later as if they did not.

Most people do not get this in their life, at all, to love another without self, without regret and with all of it, good, bad, ugly, the now and the later, the bond and the price of it, in totality without regret. I have had the fortune to have that x3. That i will not as long as I live throw away, shelf, forget, let get covered in dust in a corner of my heart, lie to myself or the world about, or cut away from my life.

Its not a decision I would make lightly. It is one that I accept the concesequences of, come what may, by choice, knowingly for life.

M. brought up what if you got married 40 years form now, and we were gone, and now you have this tattoo of our nicknames on your breastbone over your heart. I would think that the man that I marry would take all of me, past and present, good and bad, both the love and the price of it, by choice knowingly, or I would not be bound to him.

I will not hide a part of my life that DOES and WILL matter to me from a husband because he cannot accept that that is truly a part of my self. That man who can not accept all of the pieces of me, will not be a husband to me.

Most people are too insecure to love another that way, with full acceptance, selflessness and without regret. Such a man has no place as a lifelong mate to me.

Find the love that matters no matter the price or the future, without regret, and without condition, the good and the bad, the best and the worst, the good times and the bad ones, with all of its faults accepted and without selfishness. If it isn't that, it isn't love.

If you don't have this in your life, ask yourself THIS first. Are you GIVING this in your life?

If you want the secret to having love, real, in your life, the secret is giving it first, without expectations, a...nd without selfishness, with acceptance, both of the person and their faults and the cost to you later in the worst case scenario. If you can't do all of that, then that person should not be in your life, because you do not love them.

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. (jealousy, the definition of envy, pride, and boasting) 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking (jealousy, ownership = self seeking) , it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Vigilant - Favorite Book Quote All Time - Internal Freedom, Will, and the Triune Soul

"What did you learn, as a slave?"
"That no one can ever be a slave to another man."
"That is a lie."
"Then I learned a lie."
"But you believe it."
Will nodded.
"There are people who do things for fear of the lash. There are people who do things for fear they will lose their families or their lives. There are people bought and sold. Are they not slaves?"
They are slaves to their passion. Their fear rules them. What power do you have over me if I am not afraid of your lash? Am I your slave, if I am not afraid to lose my family? I obey you, faithfully, completely, because I choose to; am I your slave? And when you come to hate me for my freedom, which is greater than yours, and you command me to do what I will not do, then I stand before you in disobedience. Punish me, then; I choose to be punished. And if the punishment is more than I am willing to accept, then I will use such force as is necessary to stop the punishment, and no more. But never, for a moment, have I done anything but what I choose to do."
"Then no one is as strong as you."
"Not so. I've given my obedience to God, and use my best judgment to carry out his purpose, when I have some understanding of it. But those who have chosen to give their obedience to their passion, or to their memory, they freely choose to obey. The glutton freely overfills his belly, the pederast feeds on innocence, and the fearful man obeys his fear--freely."
"You make it sound as if our desires were separate from ourselves."
"They are. And if you don't know that, then you might as well become Unwyrm's slave after all."
"I know something of the doctrine of the Vigilants."
"I am not talking about a school of doctrine. I'm talking about the answer I gave Heffiji. The reason Unwyrm calls to me." 
Now she could ask him outright. "What question did Heffiji ask?"
"She asked me whether dwelfs have a soul."
"Then it is theology."
"What she really was asking--and it's a question you'd better answer before you face Unwyrm--she was asking what part of her was herself.''
Patience studied Will's placid face. How could he have known the question that so haunted her? "My father taught me to listen to everything and believe nothing."
"The dead do that much," said Will.
“The dead don't listen."
"If you believe nothing, then you are listening exactly as much as the dead."
"I'm not dead," Patience whispered.
Will smiled. "I know," he said. He reached out as if to touch her cheek; she recoiled from him and shook her head. So he sat back, making no effort to conceal his disappointment, and began to teach. "Each part of the triune soul has its desires. The passion has the desires of pleasure and survival and the avoidance of pain. Those who are slaves to passion are the ones we see as hedonists or cowards or addicts or drunks, the ones we pity or despise. And these slaves think that their passion is themselves. I want this drink. I want to breathe. Their identity is in their needs. And to control them is easy. You simply control their pleasure or their pain."
She smiled. "I learned this in the cradle. People who are that easy to control, though, aren't worth controlling."
So," he said. "They're the weakest. Are you one of them?"
"When he calls me, I can hardly think of anything else but the need for him. Even when I remember what he looks like, from the gebling memories within me, even when I should loathe him, he makes me want him, want his children."
"You came through Tinker's Wood when he didn't want you to."
"If he had really wanted to stop me, he could have."
"I say he couldn't. Because you long ago separated yourself from your body's desires."
She remembered the cold breeze from the unglazed window of her room. She nodded.
"So." He did not teach as Father did; there was no sense of triumph when she bent before his argument. He merely went on. "The second part of the triune soul, the memory--it's More difficult. It has another kind of desire, one that is born in us as surely as the need to breathe, but because it is never satisfied, we don't know that it exists. For a moment, between breaths, we don't need to breathe, so we recognize the need to breathe when it returns."
“But this one is never gone, so we never notice it."
"Yes. Yes, you see--our memory can't hold everything. Can't hold every vision we see, every sequence of events that happened to us, everything we read, everything we hear about. It's too much. If we actually had to do that, we'd be insane before we left our infancy. So we choose. The things that are important. We remember only what matters. And we remember it in certain orders, in patterns that mean things together. In daytime, the sun is up; and all daytime becomes one day, and all nighttime becomes one night--we don't have to remember every day to remember the idea of day. But we -don't just remember this--we remember the why. It is daytime because the sun is up. Or the sun is up because it is daytime. You see? We don't remember randomly. Everything is connected by threads of cause."
"I'm not one of the Wise," said Patience. "Maybe the Wise understand the cause of everything, but I don't."
"But that's just it, that's just where the hunger comes. Every shred of experience that we remember comes as a story--a series of events that are connected by the pushes and pulls of cause. And we believe this story, of how everything is causally connected, without questioning it. I did this because. I did this in order to. And this is the world we live in, this pattern of events that cause each other. It becomes the framework by which we remember everything. But some things come along that don't fit."
"Not just some things."
"The weak-minded never notice it, Lady Patience. Everything fits for them, because they simply don't remember the things that don't belong. They never happened, the memory is gone. But for those who live in the mind, the places that don't fit, they don't disappear. They become a terrible hunger in the mind. Why, they shout. Why, why, why. And you can't be content until you know the connection. Even if it means breaking apart all the network that existed before. Once there was a time when mankind was locked on a single planet, and they thought their star circled that planet, because that was all they saw. That was the evidence of their eyes. But there were some who looked closely, and saw that it didn't fit, and the why pressed upon them until they had an answer. And when it all fit, they were able to send starships to worlds like this."
"Every child asks why," said Patience.
"But most children stop asking," said Will. "They finally get a system that works well enough. They have enough stories to account for everything they care about, and anything their stories can't handle, they ignore."
"The priests say that the self is in the memory--that we are what we remember doing."
"That's what they say."
"But I remember doing the acts of hundreds of Heptarchs, and a few geblings, too. Are they part of myself?"
"You see the problem as few people see it," said Will. "The self isn't in the memory, only the story we believe about ourselves. It can also be revised. It's constantly being revised. We see what it was we did, and we make up a story to account for it, and believe the story, and think that we understand ourself."
"Except the dwelfs, who can't hold long memories in their conscious minds."
"Yes."
"So what did you tell Heffiji--that she had no soul?"
"Only that her soul had no story. Because ourself is something else."
She knew what he would say; it was clear to her now.
"The will, of course. It's strange, Will, that you're named for the thing that you think is most important. Or did you decide it was important because it was your name?
"Will wasn't the name I was born with. I took that name the day Reck looked at me and said, 'Who are you?' "
"What's the desire of the will, then? You said all three parts of the soul had their desire." 
"The will makes only a simple choice, and it's already made. Your whole life is nothing but acting out the choice that defines who you really are."
"What's that?"
"The choice between good and evil."
She let him see her disappointment. "All this talk, and we come to that?"
"I'm not talking about the choice between killing people and not killing people, or between stealing and not stealing. Sometimes killing a person is evil. Sometimes killing a person is good. You know that."
‘Which is why I decided not to care about good and evil a long time ago."
"No. You decided not to care about legal and illegal."
"I decided there wasn't any absolute good and there wasn't any absolute evil. You just said the same thing."
"No I didn't," said Will.
"You said sometimes killing is good and sometimes it's evil."
"So. Killing isn't absolute. But now, when you go to Unwyrm, what's wrong with doing what he wants? What's wrong with you having his children?"
"Because I don't want to."
“Why? You know he'll give you pleasure. And your children--they'll be human, perfectly human, only stronger and smarter, wiser and quicker, and they'll no doubt have a perfect connection between their minds, all of them like Unwyrm combined with the best human traits. You'll be the mother of the master race. The most magnificent intelligent beings ever created. The next step in human evolution. Why don't you desire it?"
"I don't know," she said.
"If you don't know, then at the crucial moment, when you are with him, and all your desire is for him, you still won't know. You'll still refuse, but perhaps not with all your strength. And it'll take all your strength to resist him, I promise you."
"Come with me," she said. "Kill him for me."
"I'll come with you, if I can. And I'll kill him, if I can. But I think I won't be able to. I think there's only one person who'll ever come close enough to hurt him, to stop him."
"Then tell me. What is it I need to know?"
"It's simple. Nothing exists except in relation to something else. An atom is not an atom. It doesn't exist, except in relation to other atoms. If it never responded to anything else, it would not exist. All existence is like that--utterly isolated pieces that only come into existence in their interaction with other pieces. Human beings too. We don't exist except in relation to the other events of the world. Everything we do, everything we are depends on our responses to other events, and other events' responses to us,"
"I knew that."
"You didn't know that. It's so obvious that no one knows it. If nothing you did caused any change in the world outside, and nothing in the world outside caused any change in you, then you wouldn't know there was a world outside, and it wouldn't know you existed, and so it would be meaningless to speak of your existence at all.
So your existence, all our existence, depends on every piece, every person in the universe behaving according to certain set patterns. The system. The order in which everything exists. The laws that bind atoms and molecules are very firm. They have no freedom to vary, because as soon as they vary, they cease to be. But life--ah, there the freedom begins. And we who think we are intelligent, we are the freest of all. We make our own patterns and change them as we like. We build systems and orders and tear them down. But you'll notice that none of our choices have any effect whatever on the way that atoms and molecules behave. Just as we have no idea what any particular molecule is doing, they have no notion of what we're doing. We can't change their order at all. We can use it, but we can't break down their system and cause them to wink out of existence."
"I suppose that's true. We can burn wood, but the atoms that are torn from certain molecules combine again with others, and the system hangs together."
"Exactly. So we can't do good or evil to most of the universe. Only to other living things. Mostly to each other. Because the systems of human beings are ours to control. They're every bit as real as the universe itself, and they are what gives us our existence--but we can manipulate them. We can change the systems that create the terms of our life. And we do change those systems, according to the single simple choice of our will."
"What's the choice?"
"It arises from the desire of the will. And the desire of the will is simple. To grow."
"I don't want to grow."
"Every living thing has this same desire. Patience. Angel touched on it, in his childish way, when he spoke of people who own things. That's the most pathetic way people have of growing. The way Sken makes this boat part of herself--it makes her larger. Eating .also makes her larger."
She smiled. "You're being ridiculous now."
"I'm not. Kings also make themselves larger, because their kingdom is part of themself. Parents make themselves larger through their children. Some few people, though, have such a powerful hunger that they can't be satisfied until their self includes everything alive."
"The King's House is all the world," murmured Patience.
"What did you say?"
"Something my father taught me."
"Oh."
"So, is it good or evil to desire to be larger?"
"Neither. It's how you choose to grow larger. The system lives on sacrifice. No order could exist in which every person in it received everything he desired all the time. The system that gives us our existence depends on people making sacrifices. I give up something I desire, so that others can receive some of what they desire. In turn, they give up something they want, so I can have some of what I want. Every human society depends on that simple principle."
As always, her mind raced ahead, trying to solve the problem before it had to be explained to her. "So you're saying that good people sacrifice everything, and evil people sacrifice nothing."
"Not at all. I'm saying that good people sacrifice anything that is necessary in order to maintain the order that allows all others to exist, even if they have to sacrifice their own life. While evil people manipulate and force the sacrifice of any and every other person in order to wholly gratify their own hunger. Do you see the difference?"
"This is theology. Kristos was good, because he sacrificed his life."
"Don't speak foolishly, Patience, not to me. Everybody dies, and some have been martyrs in stupid causes. Kristos is Kristos because we believe he sacrificed himself for the whole world. For the largest order of all. He would not have died for anything less. Because his self had grown to include all the systems of mankind, and he acted to protect them all."
"Now I see how you became a heretic."
"Of course you do. These fools who think their Kristos will come to unite humans in perfect peace, without including the millions of geblings, gaunts, and dwelfs--it would not be good, because such a Kristos would be forcing the sacrfice of half the people of the world, to serve herself. So if Kristos is to be Kristos, she is willing to sacrifice anything to maintain the order that gives life to all."