# Quote — Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

> A facility with oaths is not the most reassuring quality in a bargainer. And your strength is also your weakness in any bargaining at all. You are so strong as to be unable to grant to another the power to control you. You have no gods to swear by. The only thing you will honor is a gambling debt, and there are no grounds for gaming here.

- Author: [Roger Zelazny](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny.md)
- Book: [Lord of Light](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny/lord-of-light.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_of_Light#FOUR) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny/lord-of-light/a-facility-with

## More from this book

> I do not have the time to give you more than my contempt.

p. 181 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny/lord-of-light/i-do-not.md)

> I shall return to being a man, and I shall let the people keep the Buddha who is in their hearts. Whatever the source, the message was pure, believe me. That is the only reason it took root and grew.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny/lord-of-light/i-shall-return.md)

> "I decided that mankind could live better without gods. If I disposed of them all, people could start having can openers and cans to open again, and things like that, without fearing the wrath of Heaven. We've stepped on these poor fools enough. I wanted to give them a chance to be free, to build what they wanted."
>
> "But they live, and they live and they live."
>
> "Sometimes, and sometimes not. So do the gods."
>
> "You were about the last Accelerationist left in the world, Sam. No one would have thought you were also the deadliest."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/roger-zelazny/lord-of-light/i-decided-that.md)