Maria

“It's political, sir. Apparently he wants a return to the values and traditions that made the city great, sir."

"Does he _know_ what those values and traditions _were_?" said Vimes, aghast.”
― Terry Pratchett

“You would -- you would take him into Your heaven, my lord?" asked Ingrey in astonishment and outrage. "He slew, not in defense of his own life, but in malice and madness. He tried to steal powers not rightly given to him. If I guess right, he plotted the death of his own brother. He would have raped Ijada, if he could, and killed again for his sport!"

The Son held up his hands. Luminescent, they seemed, as if dappled by autumn sun reflecting off a stream into shade. "My grace flows from me as a river, wolf-lord. Would you have me dole it out in the exact measure that men earn, as from an apothecary's dropper? Would you stand in pure water to your waist, and administer it by the scant spoon to men dying of thirst on a parched shore?"

Ingrey stood silent, abashed, but Ijada lifted her face, and said steadily, "No, my lord, for my part. Give him to the river. Tumble him down in the thunder of Your cataract. His loss is no gain of mine, nor his dark deserving any joy to me."

The god smiled brilliantly at her. Tears slid down her face like silver threads: like benedictions.

"It is unjust," whispered Ingrey. "Unfair to all who -- who would try to do rightly...."

"Ah, but I am not the god for justice," murmured the Son. "Would you both stand before my Father instead?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt

“Today many people, especially the young, think it was only America that defeated Hitler. Little is known about the price the Soviet people paid for the victory—twenty million human lives in four years.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“For Drake is no longer in his hammock, children, nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you.”
― Susan Cooper, Silver on the Tree