Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)

by Neal Shusterman

What must it have been like to believe in something greater than oneself? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be? It must have been comforting. It must have been frightening. It must have lifted people from the mundane, but also justified all sorts of evil. I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring.

Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy.

Have we ever had an enemy worse than ourselves? In the Age of Mortality we warred ceaselessly with one another, and when there was no war to be made, we beat down one another in our streets, our schools, our homes, until war turned our gaze outward again, placing the enemy at a more comfortable distance.