City of Illusions

Hope is a slighter, tougher thing even than trust, he thought, pacing his room as the soundless, vague lightning flashed overhead. In a good season one trusts life; in a bad season one only hopes, But they are of the same essence: they are the mind's indispensable relationship with other minds, with the world, and with time. Without trust, a man lives, but not a human life; without hope, he dies. When there is no relationship, where hands do not touch, emotion atrophies in void and intelligence goes sterile and obsessed. Between men the only link left is that of owner to slave, or murderer to victim.

I am no more lonely than the loon on the pond that laughs so loud.

When all ways are lost the way is clear.

To use the enemy's weapon is to play the enemy's game...speak the truth and hear the truth.

Laws are made against the impulse a people most fears in itself. Do not kill was the Shing's vaunted single Law. All else was permitted: which meant, perhaps, there was little else they really wanted to do...

In the beginning the Creator told a great lie. For there was nothing at all, but the Creator spoke, saying, It exists. And behold, in order that the lie of God might be God’s truth, the universe at once began to exist.

They let us be, here, in the cage of our ignorance.

Imagine darkness. In the darkness that faces outward from the sun a mute spirit woke. Wholly involved in chaos, he knew no pattern. He had no language, and did not know the darkness to be night.

My dogs have barked at a beggar tonight and he proves a prince of starlight.

Was he leaving home, or going home?

Seen rightly, any situation, even a chaos or a trap would come clear and lead of itself to its one proper outcome: for there is in the long run no disharmony, only misunderstanding, no chance or mischance but only the ignorant eye.

[T]hey had not taught the boy to lie. But they had not taught him to know truth from lies.

Oh fool, oh desolation!" said the Prince of Kansas. "Ill give you ten women to accompany you to the Place of the Lie, with lutes and flutes and tambourines and contraceptive pills. I'll give you five good friends armed with firecrackers. I'll give you a dog—in truth I will, a living extinct dog, to be your true companion. Do you know why dogs died out? Because they were loyal, because they were trusting. Go alone, man!

No-mind is an evil place for mind to stay.

He should be thinking that madness caused this man to call himself a king, but was thinking rather that kingship had driven this man mad.

Those that live so much alone are full of fear ... It is fear that kills.

You see, prech Ramarren, it is not true that the Lords refuse to teach the natives—it is the natives who refuse to learn. These white ones are sharing the Lords’ knowledge.” “And what have they forgotten, to earn that prize?” Falk asked, but the question meant nothing to Orry.

The way that can be gone is not the eternal Way.. . . His

In this effort to attain security, independence and privacy of course were suspect....