A Planet Called Treason

"...I wasn't happy.
No one was happy, I realized one day. Amused, yes. But amusement is the reaction of very bored people when nothing entertains them anymore. The Ku Kuei had all the time in the world. But they didn't know what to do with it."


"[Life] had no meaning for me,"he said. "But it means something to you. We say that we are happy because we have hope, but it's a lie. We have no hope. You're the only person I've known in my life who had hope, Lake-drinker. So leave here. This is a cemetery, leave here and save the world. You can, you know. Or if you can't, no one can."

A Planet Called Treason
Orson Scott Card