Erika Johansen

“This is how women are trained to stay indoors, she thought, the idea echoing in her mind like a gravesong. This is how women are trained not to act.”

“Even small gestures of kindness have the potential to reap enormous rewards. Only the shortsighted man believes otherwise.”

“Anger was the indulgence of a child, not a queen.”

“This, I think, is the crux of evil in this world, Majesty: those who feel entitled to whatever they want, whatever they can grab. Such people never ask themselves if they have the right. They consider no cost to anyone but themselves.”

“The problems of the past.How the problems of the past, uncorrected, inevitably became the problems of the future.”

“Why do you have such a nice Bible?” Kelsea asked.“The Bible is a book, Kelsea, a book that has influenced mankind for thousands of years. It deserves to be preserved in a good edition, just like any other important book.”“Do you believe it’s true?”“No.”“Then why did I have to read it?” Kelsea demanded, feeling resentful. It hadn’t been a particularly good book, and it was heavy; she had hauled the damned thing from room to room for days. “What was the point?”“To know your enemy, Kelsea. Even a book can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and when that happens, you blame the hands, but you also read the book.”

“We're going up there," she told them. "To the Keep. Your first instinct will be to protect me, I know-""Here it comes," Dyer muttered"But do me a favor and protect each other. Understand, Dyer?""Yes, Lady, yes! Because that's what I signed up for: to guard other guards while I leave the Queen to her own devices.”

“Carlin often said that history was everything, for it was in man’s nature to make the same mistakes over and over.”

“I am Death. I come quickly, I come slowly, but I am not cheated.”

“Pain only disables the weak.”

“Few things are more dangerous to an egalitarian ideal than the concept of a chosen people, and the divide drawn by the early iteration of God's Church helped to exacerbate the many ideological faults that already underlay the landscape. When they chips were down, Tear's people were ready to turn on each other, and the fall of the Town was very quick, so quick that this historian wonders whether all such communities are not destined to fail. Our species is capable of altruism, certainly, but it is not a game we play willingly, let alone well”

“I'll govern for the good of the governed.I'll make sure every citizen is properly educated and doctored.I'll cease wasteful spending and ease the burden on the poor through redistribution of land and goods and taxation.”

“Even a book can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and when that happens, you blame the hands, but you also read the book.”