The Darkness That Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing, #1)

by R. Scott Bakker

Everywhere men grasped and grasped, as though the titles “king,” “shriah,” and “grandmaster” were simply masks worn by the same hungry animal. Avarice, it seemed to him, was the world’s only dimension.

There was nothing the ignorant prized more than the ignorance of others.

“Zealots holding out redemption in one hand to draw attention away from the whip in the other. Sooner or later, everyone sees the whip.”