# Quote — Sheri S. Tepper, The Visitor

> “This place is a godland, you may call me god. Small g, for I am not proud. We are a race evolving in this Creation to serve the Maker of it. We act as temporary deities during the childhood of individual peoples and planets. I was the midwife who brought forth this world, who stirred the primordial ooze, and noted the life that crawled up from the sea. Our race is not unlike yours, but I am very old, and you are still very young.
>
> ”We come and go. I came to teach your people language. I raised up oracles, whispered to soothsayers, wove bright visions for sorcerers, and spoke marvels to your alchemists. I came again to raise up prophets in the Real One’s name: Bruno, Galileo, Newton, Fermi...”
>
> The doctor interrupted, “The Real One? Who?”
>
> ”The Being whom I worship. The Ultimate who stands apart from time. The Deity some men think they are addressing when they pray with words. The Real One doesn’t even perceive words. If IT did, imagine what IT would have to listen to! The Real One sees only the pattern of what is, where it begins and where it comes to rest. The only prayer IT perceives is action.
>
> “I don’t understand that,” said Nell, stubbornly.
>
> “An example from your old world, Nell. A child being shot and everyone weeping. What does the Real One see? IT sees the maker and making of a device that kills, the device itself, the selling of the device that kills, the buying of the device that kills, the placement of it near the child, the occurrence, the death. Only actions enter the pattern the Real One sees. What is. What was done. IT perceives neither intentions nor remorse.”
>
> Nell said angrily, “What do you mean, what is?”
>
> The small god seemed to shift uneasily on its pedestal. “What is, is! Reality. Nature. The laws of a Universe that contains all things. Expansion and contraction, matter and anti-matter, light and dark, joy and sorrow, ecstacy and horror, supernovas and black holes, euphoria and pain, governing and politics, life and death. All the goads and all the stumbling blocks that force intelligence to grow by conquering.”
>
> “Conquering what?” asked Arnole, his hand on Nell’s arm.
>
> “Anything. Stink, or disease, or hatred. Pain, bugs, or brambles. The shortness of life or the frailty of age.”
>
> “Why not just leave those things out?” Dismé protested.
>
> “It’s been tried. If you give a being only feelgood-joy-life, nothing happens. Dinosaurs lived here for hundreds of millions of years in feelgood-joy-life, and at the end of it they had conquered nothing.

- Author: [Sheri S. Tepper](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper.md)
- Book: [The Visitor](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-visitor.md)
- Page: 459
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sheri_S._Tepper#The_Visitor_(2002)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-visitor/this-place-is-a-godland

## More from this book

> Long ago, the people of the world cried out for help. In the reaches of heaven their cry was heard, and a Visitor came in answer to it. The Visitor began helping immediately, but secretly. Now the visitor intends to be known to the people of the world and the people of the world must deal with that knowledge.

p. 41 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-visitor/long-ago-the.md)

> “I know so little,” she murmured.
>
> “Better admit you are up to your neck in ignorance than stand upon a pinnacle of misinformation,” he said firmly.

p. 258 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-visitor/i-know-so-little.md)

> Many men of importance were gathered there to be seen talking with other men of importance, resulting in an abundance of conspicuous but immaterial discourse.

p. 40 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/sheri-s-tepper/the-visitor/many-men-of-importance.md)