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Aunt Vidala said that best friends led to whispering and plotting and keeping secrets, and plotting and secrets led to disobedience to God, and disobedience led to rebellion, and girls who were rebellious became women who were rebellious, and a rebellious woman was even worse than a rebellious man because rebellious men became traitors, but rebellious women became adulteresses.
Right now I still have some choice in the matter. Not whether to die, but when and how. Isn’t that freedom of a sort?
How tedious is a tyranny in the throes of enactment. It’s always the same plot.
You’d be surprised how quickly the mind goes soggy in the absence of other people. One person alone is not a full person: we exist in relation to others. I was one person: I risked becoming no person.
Where there is an emptiness, the mind will obligingly fill it up. Fear is always at hand to supply any vacancies, as is curiosity.
Innocent men denying their guilt sound exactly like guilty men, as I am sure you have noticed, my reader. Listeners are inclined to believe neither.
“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”
Being able to read and write did not provide the answers to all questions. It led to other questions, and then to others.
Still, I wanted to believe; indeed I longed to; and, in the end, how much of belief comes from longing?
Once a story you’ve regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories.
The truth can cause a lot of trouble for those who are not supposed to know it.
The ability to concoct plausible lies is a talent not to be underestimated.
