The Consuming Fire

Confidence isn’t about knowing you’re right. Confidence is about knowing you can make it right.

A library is not information; it is a means of preserving information. In every case, before memory or information can be stored, someone must decide what must be stored. Someone must choose. Someone must curate.

A church is an institution separate from the religion it serves. It’s filled with people. And you know how people are.

Lenson Ornill took in Grayland II’s words, their intent and meaning, what they boded for the church as he understood it, his faith as he had developed it, and the genesis of his engagement with both, trapped in that small cabin, struggling to breathe, all those many long years ago. And then, quite without meaning to, he uttered the words to encapsulate what he was feeling about each, in this one epochal moment. “Well, fuck,” he said.

You have doubted me. Doubt me no longer. You have come to destroy me. I am not destroyed. You have come to burn me. I am the consuming fire. You will feel what it is to burn.

Hiding the past never works as well as simply neglecting it.

The plan is not the goal.

Don’t bring a spoon to a toothbrush fight,

the cynical could afford the luxury of their cynicism because of the stability of the system they mocked.

Hey, you know what, basing an entire system of social, political and economic control on the vague, all-too-easily misinterpreted words of a single person claiming divine inspiration is probably not actually all that smart, now, is it.

It’s this: Confidence isn’t about knowing you’re right. Confidence is about knowing you can make it right.

I was just talking about you,” Cardenia said, coming up to him. “To your imaginary friends, I see.” “They’re not imaginary. They’re just not real.” “Very subtle distinction.

...because she wasn’t some fucking fictional character destined to do whatever some goddamn hack wanted her to do.

There were more than a few scientists who knew one little thing, and then thought that knowledge was universally applicable to every other problem, to the point of excluding or discounting information from people whose specialty was that other problem.

Yes. The one advantage we had, which is a thing I brought to the enterprise, was the understanding that the plan was not the goal. The goal was the goal, and we were going to get to it however we could. And if it meant changing our plans, sometimes in the middle of executing them, then we would.

That’s the point of rumors. They’re not based on anything, so nothing is very effective against them. Truth is no defense, and the people fielding these rumors know it.

You came to see me about something?” “Yes, ma’am. A lawyer is here.” “Toss him out a window.” “Her, actually, I think.” “So toss her out, then. Equally defenestratable.

I’m saying you should come over.” “Maybe I’m avoiding you.” “You’re doing a fucking poor job of it, then, standing in my office.

You suggested this to her, didn’t you.” “Why do you say that?” “Because I don’t know if you’ve ever met the Countess Nohamapetan, but she’s about as sentimental as a fucking alligator.

The short version was death, disease, despots and destruction. The longer version had kept him up wondering what the hell was wrong with people.

the plan was not the goal. The goal was the goal, and we were going to get to it however we could.

The Church of the Interdependency and other religions found their places of worship jammed, as the faithful, the newly faithful and the not-actually-at-all-faithful-but-this-is-some-weird-shit-and-I’m-hedging-my-bets came in and, depending on experience, prayed, meditated or wondered what it was exactly they were supposed to do now that they were there. Priests, ministers, rabbis, imams and other religious leaders were on one hand delighted to be useful in a moment of spiritual and existential crisis and on the other hand well aware that this was the theological equivalent of shoppers making a panic run at the market, with their new parishioners grabbing at anything and hoping it would get them through.

Kiva considered that she might be developing a thing for Fundapellonan, which on one hand would be a very not-Kiva thing to do, but on the other hand who gave a fuck if it was “not-Kiva,” because she wasn’t some fucking fictional character destined to do whatever some goddamn hack wanted her to do.

When things are hidden, there will always be people who object, and who will then go out of their way to preserve and store what is being hidden, so that someone can find it later, either intentionally or by simply stumbling over it. This is why I never tried to hide alternative takes of history. It makes them more attractive to future historians when you do. I smothered them under strata of official history instead.” “Never hide, just overwhelm,” Cardenia joked.

It was the ‘he likes someone else and now I’m sad and want to go eat an entire pie’ thing.

It’s conspiracy mongering.” “I agree. But not all conspiracies crop up because someone forgot to adjust their tinfoil hat, ma’am. Sometimes they’re part of a disinformation campaign.

Let’s just say that I anticipated that when I needed to leave Ponthieu, it would be suddenly, and that I might be chased. And that those chasing me might prefer that if I couldn’t be caught, that I should be rendered into very small pieces.

I will communicate that issue to the countess.” “Do that. Also communicate to her the part where I said ‘fuck you.’ Make sure you phrase it precisely that way.