“I also want the figurative like a painter who only paints abstract colors but wants to show that he does so because he chooses to, not because he can't draw.”

“Atheists don’t hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don’t exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists — like the painting experts hated the painter — hate God because He does exist.”

“Didn't you ever have a father yourself? You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your father.' So I figured it's because I never had a father that I don't want one now. A person can't miss something she never had.”

“The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.”

“If Innocent is happy, it is because he is innocent. If he can defy the conventions, it is just because he can keep the commandments. It is just because he does not want to kill but to excite to life that a pistol is still as exciting to him as it is to a schoolboy. It is just because he does not want to steal, because he does not covet his neighbour's goods, that he has captured the trick (oh, how we all long for it!), the trick of coveting his own goods. It is just because he does not want to commit adultery that he achieves the romance of sex; it is just because he loves one wife that he has a hundred honeymoons.”

“I think my dad was happy. I phrase it like this because he seldom showed much emotion. Hugs and kisses wwere a rarity for me growing up, and when they did happen, they often struck me as lifeless, something he did because he felt he was supposed to, not because he wanted to.”