“You have not accepted my advice.” Fair shrugged. “You asked me to remain ignorant, to accept my stupidity and ineptitude.” - Jack Vance

Guyal reined his horse and reflected that flowers were rarely cherished by persons of hostile disposition.

If religions are diseases of the human psyche, as the philosopher Grintholde asserts, then religious wars must be reckoned the resultant sores and cankers infecting the aggregate corpus of the human race. Of all wars, these are the most detestable, since they are waged for no tangible gain, but only to impose a set of arbitrary credos upon another’s mind.

The colour, noise and festivity failed to elevate Carfilhiot’s mood; in fact—so he told himself—never had he witnessed so much pointless nonsense.