At least I’m done with adolescence. Never could stand it; if I don’t want to kill someone, I want to have sex with them. - N. K. Jemisin

Put people in a cage and they will devote themselves to escaping it, not cooperating with those who caged them.

Mother always said that if one must do something unpleasant, one should do it wholeheartedly and not waste effort on regret.

You can't lose faith you never had to begin with.
Ah. So you never believed in the Bright at all?
Of course I believed. Even now I believe, in principle. But when I was sixteen, I saw the hypocrisy in all the things the priests had taught me. It's all very well to say the world values reason and compassion and justice, but if nothing in reality reflects those words, they're meaningless.