It could be any way at all by the will of Aitun, snapped Chiddy. Aitun lets everything happen that can happen! It is up to intelligence to select! - Sheri S. Tepper

I don't need you to believe. I can make you do what I say even if you don't believe. A sulky-sounding voice, this. "God doesn't need to prove anything, not if god can make people do what god wants."

Don’t take me for a fool, lovely girl. We fat old things have not laid aside our brains with our silhouettes.

To us it does not seem that long ago, possibly because our children hear stories told around the fire of things which happened fifteen centuries back. Such stories carry an immediacy one does not get from books.…"
"Which is why some countries carry such old grudges," offered Marianne. "What children learn at their grandmas' knees they act upon as though it happened yesterday."
He nodded gravely, even sadly. "Perhaps that is true. Those who have an oral tradition full of old wrongs and old revenge do seem to fight the same battles forever. If the Irish were not forever singing of their ancient wrongs—or writing poetry about it…well, we see the result in every morning's newspapers."