“And you know what? If there is a God, and it's that same God who's so eager to have temples built in honor of his greatness, and wars fought over him, and people dropping to their knees telling him...”

“Dex's mother knew she should be afraid for her daughter. This, she'd been told, was the tragedy of being a girl. To live in fearit was the fate of any parent, maybe, but the special provenance of a...”

“It's significantly more satisfying to kick a wall than it is to kick thin air. For the rebellious teen- or the teen who wants to feel like a rebel- a clearly defined law gives you something to defi...”

“Popularity gives you power only over people who care about being popular. Ostracism gives you power only over those who fear being ostracized.”

“A fundamentalist is someone who wants to substitute what he believes for what you believe," Max said. "And someone who thinks he knows the will of God better than anyone else.”

“I longed to return to that bloody riverbank, to throw myself in the path of the final arrow, to die ignorant, and so, in love. Better to be killed by an arrow than by the words of the one I most tr...”

“His men had begun gathering the wounded or stunned into a small group some distance back up the slope. Here and there an animal or human stirred, but not many. There were few cries of pain or fear ...”

“There comes a point when you either embrace who and what you are, or condemn yourself to be miserable all your days. Other people will try to make you miserable; don't help them by doing the job yo...”

“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”