He had been taught as a child that Urras was a festering mass of inequity, iniquity, and waste. But all the people he met, and all the people he saw, in the smallest country village, were well dressed, well fed, and contrary to his expectations, industrious. They did not stand about sullenly waiting to be ordered to do things. Just like Anaresti, they were simply busy getting things done. It puzzled him. He had assumed that if you removed a human being's natural incentive to work -- his initiative, his spontaneous creative energy -- and replaced it with external motivation and coercion, he would become a lazy and careless worker. But no careless workers kept those lovely farmlands, or made the superb cars and comfortable trains. The lure and compulsion of profit was evidently a much more effective replacement of the natural initiative than he had been led to believe.

If you say you are truly in love with me, you must see the light in my darkness, embrace my iniquity, and follow me to hell.

When we become quiet at the collapsed value system in our nation, iniquity and injustice would eventually overrun that nation if action is not taken promptly.

If we believe that god is the creator of evil, maybe there is evil also in heaven, if that is the case, we are not out of the woods yet.

Some people are here on earth because they were sent to hell.

If a leader for the right reasons is blessed by God, even the people he leads will be blessed by God as well. But if the leader is cursed by God because of iniquity, even the people he leads will be cursed as well.

Good gods are scarce because the majority of gods are created by evil men.

Silence and indifference would not take you anywhere at the end of the day. It is only people who show upright positions in standing for the truth that win at last. When we become quiet at the collapsed value system in our nation, iniquity and injustice would eventually overrun that nation if action is not taken promptly.

We’ll sleep when we’re tired. When we wake, I’ll find a way to make you laugh and I’ll live in the sound of it.” My throat gets tight because I long for that day to be now. “We’ll find somewhere you’ve never been and we’ll make it ours—fill it with memories of us. That’s what I want.” I finish with the alcohol swab. Leaning close, I gently blow on his healing wound to ease the sting. Reed takes my hand and brings it to his lips, kissing it tenderly. “And when we get that sleep, there will never be a your side or a my side of the bed—we’ll always meet in the middle. And when I hold you there, in our bed, you’ll let me rest my lips here.” Reed lets go of my hand to move his thumb to caress the sensitive skin of my neck just beneath my ear. I get swept up in him: my body his with one touch. I turn and rub my cheek gently against his palm. “And we won’t rush...Ever,” I murmur, forgetting to be scared. I want that future with him. “The world can spin around us but we’ll take our time, savor every moment.” My head rests on his shoulder. “Just you and me.

The most savage of human kind are the most advanced.