Purest light will blind as surely as absolute darkness. - Steven Erikson

The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god’s name. And see in themselves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands.

Everyone was broken inside. It was just that some were more broken than others, and when they were broken bad inside, it was all they could do to keep the outside looking normal.

No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no. The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes.