"We are not really a godless bunch. We are just the sort who ignore the gods—probably in the unconscious hope that the gods will not notice us."

“Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.”

“If I had my druthers I’d be twenty-three years old for the rest of my life. Which would last another three thousand years.”

“One’s own yesterday is a ghost that will not be laid. Death is the only exorcism.”

“I have seen it before. Little people have to hate, have to blame someone for their own inadequacies.”

“Exact words were of no consequence. At heart the squabble was as old as humanity itself, fug-headed antiques locking horns with omniscient youth.”

“Cruel, cruel tricks of the Adversary. I had been gifted with a mind that wanted to explore, to find out, to know. And I had been gifted with faith. And now I had been gifted with information that put fact and faith into conflict. I had not been gifted with a priest’s slippery dexterity when it came to reconciling the philosophically irreconcilable.”