Curse on the Land (Soulwood, #2)

by Faith Hunter

Throughout history, registration of the populace, or part of the populace, had been a prelude to extermination. Step one of a pogrom.

That must be why lying is such a common sin. It’s successful and makes life easier.

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.’ That was a roundabout way of saying that the government needs to prove itself if it wants to be considered among the angels.”

Let it tell me that death and life were an endless loop. That life and death were nature’s way. That all things, no matter how cruel seeming, were part of living. That I was loved now when I was alive, and I would be loved when I was dust and ashes and my soul was set free.

it wasn’t a mortal sin to be what I was born being, that mortal sins were a matter of how we lived, not how we were born.

Thomas Jefferson had said, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.”