Sheri S. Tepper Quotes

Man has always tortured in the name of his gods and committed atrocities in the name of his culture.

Afar, Legless God Orimar Breaze howled rage and resentment of this nonsense. There were only two classes of beings: adorers or persecutors.

Some can see no farther than their mirrors. What wears another face must go unseen.

As the Gauphin taught, people are ridiculous! We have language and history, we have technology and philosophy, and we still have not achieved good sense and self-control!

The first rule of governance is never to choose who to sacrifice, snarled the Procurator. Or, at least, never to be seen to choose. Death and dismemberment must always be…inadvertent. Everybody's fault or nobody's fault!

I suspect there’s little difference between whim and inspiration at the beginning of any chain of events. It’s what happens later that tells us which is which.

Many men of importance were gathered there to be seen talking with other men of importance, resulting in an abundance of conspicuous but immaterial discourse.

They still begin their services with the first words the prophetess had spoken to them as a teaching. “This I say unto you, be not sexist pigs.”

That's why we train women judges here at Temple. It is the nature of men to make rules for everything and to play complicated games with them. For them, the game is more important than justice.
"Ordinary people prefer justice. They prefer that things be taken case by case, they prefer an attempt at justice over the rules of law, for they know that pure law is often used by the clever to victimize the innocent.

Mostly it's just that you're not one of us. If you're not one of us, you're an unbeliever. Everyone not part of us is part of the devil: you, the people of Ahabar, the people of Phansure, everyone. Our Cause is to destroy the devil, all of it. We're the only true followers of God. We have the truth. It was revealed to us, long ago, on Manhome."…
"You believe that, too?"
"Of course I believe it. It is my Cause. It was my father's Cause, and his father's before him. Even on Manhome we killed the unbelievers."

If God is truly powerful, He would not let this plague go on.

Jory continued in a lecturer’s tone. “Old women like us, Cafferty, are left here to die. It would not be fitting for them to die where men who don’t own them might look upon them—and of course their owners don’t want to look at them—so they die here, where none see them. The religion of Thrasis prohibits murder. They are merely given no food or water and left to the mercy of the Thrasian God.”

Aside from earning their livings, what did your people do, mostly? Games. Sports. Casinos. Loud machines that went fast. Shopping. Lawsuits blaming other for whatever went wrong. What did they believe in? Conspiracy theories. Racial superiority. Heroes with superpowers. Faith healers. God-loves-you religions. State-supported lotteries. All that enormous energy expended to conquer nothing at all, stadia full of people watching no conquering going on. For every scientist or person in government who really tried to conquer, there were a thousand people buying lottery tickets, drinking beer, watching football, and growing old.

Great wealth breeds great arrogance.

Let us consider, said Theology Panel: “Is Voorstod a slave state, or is it merely pious?”