Her shoes were comfortable. They reflected her hope for the evening.

Earth is a homicide victim. We lose our children. There are wars. Disease. And God comes strolling by like a cosmic Billie Burke.

We use concepts like “consciousness”—“mind”—“personality,” but we don’t really know yet what these things are.’ He was shaking his head. ‘Not really. Not at all.

God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.

Yet I think the demon’s target is not the possessed; it is us . . . the observers . . . every person in this house. And I think—I think the point is to make...

As far as God goes, I _am_ a nonbeliever. Still am. But when it comes to a devil—well, that’s something else.

What looked like morning was the beginning of endless night

For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love.

But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn’t otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans.

We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops—which...

Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter?

The child was slender as fleeting hope.