“Zsoronga, Sorweel was beginning to realize, possessed the enviable ability to yoke his conviction to his need to believe, absolutely, whatever his heart required. For Sorweel, belief and want alwa...”

“We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one's own deception is to accuse others of deceit.”

“It is strange the way trauma deadens curiosity. To suffer cruelty in excess is to be delivered from care. The human heart sets aside its questions when the future is too capricious. This is the iro...”

“The Men of the Ordeal do not march to save the World, Proyas--at least not first and foremost. They march to save their wives and children. Their tribes and their nations. If they learn that the wo...”

“Gods are but greater demons," the Cishaurim said, "hungers across the surface of eternity, wanting only to taste the clarity of our souls. Can you not see this?”

“Complexity begets ambiguity, which yields in all ways to prejudice and avarice. Complication does not so much defeat Men as arm them with fancy.”

“I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in mens minds, perhaps f...”

“It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.”

“So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives deligh...”