Nick’s Reviews > Parable of the Sower > Status Update

"Not until the flow of blood stopped did I feel safe."

Haha laughed my ass off, thank you Ms. Butler: " Sensible. Conservative and sensible and mature and WRONG. Very much in character with Joanne."

"Olivar doesn't sound like slavery," he said. "Those rich people would never let themselves be slaves."
Dad gave him a smile. "Not now," he said. "Not at first." He shook his head. "Kagimoto, Stamm, Frampton: Japanese, German, Canadian. When I was young, people said it would come to this. Well, why shouldn't other countries buy what's left of us if we put it up for sale."

If hyperempathy syndrome were a more common complaint, people couldn't do such things. They could kill if they had to, and bear the pain of it or be destroyed by it. But if everyone could feel everyone else's pain, who would torture? Who would cause anyone unnecessary pain? I've never thought of my problem as something that might do some good before, but the way things are, I think it would help.

"It's just a nasty old building on the outside," he was saying of hus new home. "You wouldn't believe him great it looks once you go in, though."

"Whorehouse or spaceship?" I asked.

"It's got stuff you never saw," he evaded. "TV windows you go through instead of just sitting and looking at. Headsets, belts and touchrings... you see and feel everything, do anything. Anything!"

"Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.

Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces."

To get along with God, consider the consequences of your behavior.

"If you can think of ways to entertain them and teach them at the same time, you'll get your information out. And all without making anyone look down."

"Look down...?"

"Into the abyss, Daughter." But I wasn't in trouble any more. Not at the moment. "You've just noticed the abyss," he continued. "The adults in the community have been balancing at the edge of it for more years than you've been alive."

"Things are changing now, too. Our adults haven't been wiped out by a plague so they're still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. But things have changed a lot, and they'll change more... This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they're waiting for the old days to come back."