Standing and Not Falling Quotes

“One day a man said to God, ‘God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.’ God showed the man two doors. Inside the first one, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, ‘You have seen Hell.’ Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful stew that made the man’s mouth water. The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The man said, ‘I don’t understand.’ God smiled. ‘It is simple,’ he said, ‘Love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another.’ (Traditional Fable)”
― Lee Morgan, Standing and Not Falling: A Sorcerous Primer in Thirteen Moons

“Opinions, therefore, have become the one unchallenged god of this era. You have them, and therefore you are. You have a right to them, the airing of them is seen as more important than kindness and peace, they are the last thing no one can take from you, they define your identity and identity is the last field of control offered over our lives. You might not have a right to privacy or to opt out of the social contract with society, but you have the right to your opinions, god damn it! The modern ego is pretty much composed of what we support and oppose, a startling amount of what we hold opinions on have nothing at all to do with us, and probably impact us only in the most tangential of ways, yet we will fight for our right to tell everyone about them nonetheless. Social media seems to encourage us to do this belligerently by emboldening the uninformed to believe their opinions are equal to those who are more informed.”
― Lee Morgan, Standing and Not Falling: A Sorcerous Primer in Thirteen Moons