"Lanre, what have you done?"
Lanre continued to look out over the ruins of Myr Tariniel. His shoulders stooped as though he bore a great weight. There was a weariness in his voice when he spoke. "Was I accounted a good man, Selitos?"
"You were counted among the best of us. We considered you beyond reproach."
"Yet I did this." Lanre turned. "And I counted among the best." Lanre's face was terrible to look upon. Grief and despair had ravaged it. "I, considered wise and good, did all this!" He gestured wildly. "Imagine what unholy things a lesser man must hold within his secret heart." Lanre faced Myr Tariniel and a sort of peace came over him. "For them, at least, it is over. They are safe. Safe from the thousand evils of the everyday. Safe from the pains of an unjust fate."
Selitos spoke softly, "Safe from the joy and wonder . . ."
"There is no joy!" Lanre shouted in an awful voice. Stones shattered at the sound and the sharp edges of echo came back to cut at them. "Any joy that grows here is quickly choked by weeds. I am not some monster who destroys out of a twisted pleasure. I sow salt because the choice is between weeds and nothing." Selitos saw nothing but emptiness behind his eyes.
Lanre gave a hollow laugh. "I wanted you to understand, to know it was not madness that made me do these things."
"You are not mad," Selitos admitted. "I see no madness in you."
"I hoped, perhaps, that you would join me in what I aim to do." Lanre spoke with a desperate longing in his voice. "This world is like a friend with a mortal wound. A bitter draught given quickly only eases pain."
"Destroy the world?" Selitos said softly to himself. "You are not mad, Lanre. What grips you is something worse than madness. I cannot cure you."

//Patrick Rothfuss, 2011, he Name of the Wind