" This is the lesson history told me: when a religion gets so mired in bureaucracy that compassion takes second place to the law, and the law is iron-bound and iron-clad and has no room in it for exceptions, then it’s no longer a religion for humans, it’s a religion for paper-pushers, painted saints, and marble statues. "

― Mercedes Lackey , Burning Water (Diana Tregarde, #1)