“The world was all mud and wire. The war in the heavens was only a faint imitation of the horror men had learned to make.”

“... Humans turn the places they live into great crowded piles of mud and stone, like the nests termites build--but what happens when in all the world there are only termite hills left but no bush?”

“As I continued through the streets, through the smoke of the burnings and the rubble of the fires and explosions--for during the chaos of the quarantine parts of the city had become something like war zones--my heart began to perceive that there was a wound in the material world that no amount of science could heal, that in fact science itself was only the helpful lie told to a dying man.”

“Why were men so caught up with their honor, their solemn word, their promises?Half the time the promises were never asked of them in the first place.And yet the wars that were fought over such things, the hearts broken and the lands ruined..!”

“Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it- memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.”

“the road to Heaven is paved with bullshit and busy work.”

“Even the king's Erkynguard might have wished to be elsewhere, rather than here on this killing ground where duty brought them and loyalty prisoned them. Only the mercenaries were here by choice. To Simon, the minds of men who would come to this of their own will were suddenly as incomprehensible as the thoughts of spiders or lizards—less so, even, for the small creatures of the earth almost always fled from danger. These were madmen, Simon realized, and that was the direst problem of the world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so that they could force their will on the weak and peace-loving. If God allowed such madness to be, Simon could not help thinking, then He was an old god who had lost His grip.”