What was reprehensible in being fearful in the presence of the unknown? - Michael Bishop

The True Word. Once every quarter, once every new-style month, I preach it.
"The True Word on what? Everybody's got his own true word, you know."
"On how not to die, woman. The basis of every religion."
"No," Zoe said. Not every one of them; just the ones that don't know exactly what to do with the here-and-now.

Tiglathpileser was a human, it’s rumored. And Caligula. So were a whole host of twentieth-century tyrants. So presumably were the brain-dead idiots who turned the Earth into a treeless detention camp. Being human, I’m afraid, doesn’t automatically confer demigod status on anyone.

Outside the rain continued its cadenced and indifferent commentary.