Everyone thinks they've won the Magical Belief Lottery. Everyone thinks they more or less have a handle on things, that they, as opposed to the billions who disagree with them, have somehow lucked into the one true belief system.
R. Scott BakkerSomething ... made him feel small, not in the way of orphans or beggars or children, but in a good way. In the way of souls.
R. Scott BakkerAny fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made fools.
R. Scott BakkerExhaustion has a way of parting the veils between men, not so much because the effort of censoring their words exceeds them, but because weariness is the foe of volatility. Oft times insults that would pierce the wakeful simply thud against the sleepless and fatigued.
R. Scott BakkerThereโs faith that knows itself as faith, Proyas, and thereโs faith that confuses itself for knowledge. The first embraces uncertainty, acknowledges the mysteriousness of the God. It begets compassion and tolerance. Who can entirely condemn when theyโre not entirely certain theyโre in the right? But the second, Proyas, the second embraces certainty and only pays lip service to the Godโs mystery. It begets intolerance, hatred, violence.
R. Scott BakkerYou know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill nor daring. It is not a trial of souls, not the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.
R. Scott Bakker