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It has about as good a turn of speed as you need to hunt down a lettuce.
Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.
When people say “It is written . . .” it is written here. There are fewer metaphors around than people think.
Besides, it’s dangerous to go in alone.
Take this
Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.
Many stories start long before they begin,
There was something creepy about that boy, Nhumrod thought. It was the way he looked at you when you were talking, as if he was listening.
The trouble with being a god is that you’ve got no one to pray to.
job it was to do all those things that needed to be done and which other people would rather not do. You do not ask people like that what they are thinking about in case they turn around very slowly and say “You.”
The Omnians were a God-fearing people. They had a great deal to fear.
Not, of course, the six Archpriests or the Cenobiarch himself. They weren’t that important. They were merely at the top. The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it’s still possible to get things done.
And for Fri’it, not dying had become a habit.
In the rain-forests of Brutha’s subconscious the butterfly of doubt emerged and flapped an experimental wing, all unaware of what chaos theory has to say about this sort of thing . . .
No one listened quite like Brutha, he reflected. It made it very hard to teach him.
Gods don’t like people not doing much work. People who aren’t busy all the time might start to think.
you can count them on the fingers of one head.
long-past-the-sell-by dates.
Vorbis had a terrible memory for names. He knew every one.
You couldn’t put off the inevitable. Because sooner or later, you reached the place when the inevitable just went and waited.
You couldn’t think about how you thought. It was like opening a box with the crowbar that was inside.
Earlier exquisitors had shouted and ranted confessions out of people. Vorbis never did that. He just dug deep silences in front of them.
The shepherd had a hundred sheep, and it might have been surprising that he was prepared to spend days searching for one sheep; in fact, it was because he was the kind of man prepared to spend days looking for a lost sheep that he had a hundred sheep.
just as the Prophet had said, and that counted even though he’d said it only five minutes earlier,
Guilt jerked Brutha upright like a hooked fish. He turned around, and sagged with relief. It wasn’t Vorbis, it was only God.
The Quisition asked the questions. They were known for it.
“And a lever of infinite length and, um, an immovable place to stand,” said Legibus, drying himself off. “What you see is what I got, sir. Pots and general household items, but a bit short on axiomatic mechanisms.”
Humans! They lived in a world where the grass continued to be green and the sun rose every day and flowers regularly turned into fruit, and what impressed them? Weeping statues. And wine made out of water! A mere quantum-mechanistic tunnel effect, that’d happen anyway if you were prepared to wait zillions of years. As if the turning of sunlight into wine, by means of vines and grapes and time and enzymes, wasn’t a thousand times more impressive and happened all the time . . .
Only in one small country was the ruler elected by the people, who could remove him whenever they wanted—and they called him the Tyrant.
We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.”
He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.”
‘Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.’”
Brutha thought: perhaps I could do it wrong. No. I took vows and things. You can’t just disobey. The whole world ends if you start thinking like that . . .
who would ever know? I would.
You had to have a mind like Vorbis’s to plan your retaliation before your attack.
ON YOUR FEET, PRIVATE ICHLOS
“What is your plan, young man?” “I haven’t got one,” said Brutha. “I just do things, one after the other.”
“Life in this world,” he said, “is, as it were, a sojourn in a cave. What can we know of reality? For all we see of the true nature of existence is, shall we say, no more than bewildering and amusing shadows cast upon the inner wall of the cave by the unseen blinding light of absolute truth, from which we may or may not deduce some glimmer of veracity, and we as troglodyte seekers of wisdom can only lift our voices to the unseen and say, humbly, ‘Go on, do Deformed Rabbit . . . it’s my favorite.’”
A classic
HE SURVIVED. “Did he? There’s no justice!” THERE’S JUST ME. Death vanished.
“Sounds like a miracle to me,” croaked Brutha. “Just because you can explain it doesn’t mean it’s not still a miracle.”
Do unto others before they do unto you.”
There was a growl, from somewhere in the stones. It wasn’t loud, but it was a sound with sinews in it.
“No! You can’t do that to people just because they’re helpless!” “You know, I can’t think of a better time?”
That was the trouble with last nights. They were always followed by this mornings.
you should do things because they’re right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.”
You can die for your country or your people or your family, but for a god you should live fully and busily, every day of a long life.”
“Ten thousand won’t be sufficient. One might be enough.”
Death paused. “YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE? “Yes. Yes, of course.” Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
And he’s carrying a dead body, sir.” “On a battlefield? It’s not bring-your-own, you know.”
“I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.”
REMIND ME AGAIN, he said. HOW THE LITTLE HORSE-SHAPED ONES MOVE.
