It is a great deal to ask of a kitten, to defend a man against the armies of the dead. - Ursula K. Le Guin

How men feared women! she thought, walking among the late-flowering roses. Not as individuals, but women when they talked together, worked together, spoke up for one another - then men saw plots, cabals, constraints, traps being laid. Of course they were right. Women were likely, as women, to take the next generations part, not this one's; they wove the links men saw as chains, the bonds men saw as bondage.

Do you know how to read?'
'No. It is one of the black arts.'
He nodded. 'But a useful one,' he said.

The word must be heard in silence; there must be darkness to see the stars.