55
" The Allatians believe that they have a writing system superior to all others. Unlike books written in alphabets, syllabaries, or logograms, an Allatian book captures not only words, but also the writer’s tone, voice, inflection, emphasis, intonation, rhythm. It is simultaneously a score and a recording. A speech sounds like a speech, a lament a lament, and a story re-creates perfectly the teller’s breathless excitement. For the Allatians, reading is literally hearing the voice of the past.
But there is a cost to the beauty of the Allatian book. Because the act of reading requires physical contact with the soft, malleable surface, each time a text is read, it is also damaged and some aspects of the original irretrievably lost. Copies made of more durable materials inevitably fail to capture all the subtleties of the writer’s voice, and are thus shunned.
In order to preserve their literary heritage, the Allatians have to lock away their most precious manuscripts in forbidding libraries where few are granted access. Ironically, the most important and beautiful works of Allatian writers are rarely read, but are known only through interpretations made by scribes who attempt to reconstruct the original in new books after hearing the source read at special ceremonies. "
― Ken Liu , The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
57
" Surrendering: The act of giving yourself entirely to a new self, and then let go of your personal freedom for the achievement of something greater than you had before, a new you, a new self, envisioned and designed by yourself. Surrendering, to a God or to a Dream, or to both, is the ultimate act of designing your new future and then letting go the present reality to live that dream. It is, indeed, the creation of a virtual reality in which one will find himself present, after detaching from the previous reality, which will then become virtual by default. Because, as one cannot surrender without accepting, one cannot get without letting go. And so, when one surrenders entirely, he becomes entirely new. "
― Robin Sacredfire
60
" Only in christanity that people that fall remain on the ground. When boxers are knocked down they refuse to remain on the ground or to accept a knock out. Even when they are bleeding with swollen faces, they still get up to fight but in Christianity even a push, not even a blow, Boxers gets up, wrestlers jumps up, Christians lie down.
Do you know why? They do not fight a good fight, they expect to lose before they enter the ring. Every good fighter is an enduring person, they do excercise and training, they learn the act of endurance. You can't be a good Christian without an amour which is the word of God. "
― Patience Johnson, , Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder