The Chrysalids

by John Wyndham

Words exist that can, used by a poet, achieve a dim monochrome of the body’s love, but beyond that they fail clumsily.

But why?—why?—why? . . . There was the power of gods in the hands of children, we know: but were they mad children, all of them quite mad? . . . The mountains are cinders and the plains are black glass—still, after centuries! . . . It is so dreary . . . dreary . . . a monstrous madness . . . It is frightening to think that a whole race could go insane. . . .