Merry

“There will be justice', said Brutha. 'If there is no justice, there is nothing'.
He was aware of a small voice in his head, too faint yet to distinguish words.
'Justice?' said Vorbis. The idea seemed to enrage him. He spun around to the crowd of bishops. 'Did you hear him? There will be justice? Om has judged! Through me! This is justice!'
There was a speck in the sun now, speeding towards the Citadel. And the little voice was saying left left left up up left right a bit left - The mass of metal under him was getting uncomfortably hot.
'He comes now', said Brutha.
Vorbis waved his hand to the great facade of the temple. 'Men built this. We built this', he said. 'And what did Om do? Om comes? Let him come! Let him judge between us!'
'He comes now', Brutha repeated. 'The God.'
People looked apprehensively upwards. There was that moment, just one moment, when the world holds its breath and against all experience waits for a miracle.
-up left now, when I say three, one, two, THREE-
'Vorbis?' croaked Brutha.
'What?' snapped the deacon.
'You're going to die.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“None of this made any sense to Benjamin, however hard he tried. Roll-Up Reg was talking another language. But then, he was no more persuaded by the things his parents told him, or the teachers at school. It was the world, the world itself that was beyond his reach, this whole absurdly vast, complex, random, measureless construct, this never-ending ebb and flow of human relations, political relations, cultures, histories . . . How could anyone hope to master such things? It was not like music. Music always made sense. The music he heard that night was lucid, knowable, full of intelligence and humour, wistfulness and energy and hope. He would never understand the world, but he would always love this music.”
― Jonathan Coe, The Rotters' Club

“And I decided it really was true after all. You only really need two people to believe in the same thing, to feel as though you just might belong.”
― Joanna Cannon, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

“By the end of the war there was nothing about men and women that surprised him. Nothing about anything really. The whole edifice of civilization turned out to be constructed from an unstable mix of quicksand and imagination.”
― Kate Atkinson, A God in Ruins