"We'll tell him his mother waits for him in heaven, I suppose." "Is that a lie?" "It's what we tell fools and children." She sighed. "Postulating a h… - Sheri S. Tepper

“Though many mortals speak with authority concerning what their Members want—“Our Father wants us to sacrifice a bullock,” “Kali demands we garrote a passerby”—the desires and demands of the gods are always determined by the desires and demands of the people. Whatever the prophet or priesthood comes up with, the gods parrot.

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!

Grass! Millions of square miles of it. . . . a hundred rippling oceans, each ripple a gleam of scarlet or amber, emerald or turquoise. . . . the colors shivering over the prairies. . . . Sapphire seas of grass with dark islands of grass bearing great plumy trees which are grass again.