To Sylvan truth was truth and all else was black heresy, though on occasion he had the very human difficulty of deciding which was which. - Sheri S. Tepper

One of the strangest things I have encountered on your world, dear Benita, is that many of your people have no idea who they really are but many ridiculous ideas about what they are expected to be, plus many religious convictions about what they should be, although nobody is! One should not want to be anything but what one is because it creates unhappiness.

Some people, more often men, spend their entire lives awash in bitterness. They rage against injustices done to their forefathers, perhaps centuries in the past. They rage against injustices done to their countrymen, their families. They rage against people who are unlike themselves, who, by virtue of their difference, must be up to no good. They rage against people who are like themselves who do not share their views. They rage against their parents, their wives, their children, and against anyone who is sympathetic to any of these. Their rage is a screen between them and the world, behind which they huddle over their egos, like a caveman over his fire, unable to see out through the smoke.

Your leaders worshipped the greed devil when they sold their votes and influence to spread bad stuff; they worshipped the power devil when they valued votes over the health of the planet; they made a pretence of mercy and justice by advocating human rights while they sucked up to dominance devils whose law was torture and whose rule was the enslavement of women.