“Reality [...] at every level from photons to philosophical fancies to the consciousness of living organisms was fluid [...]. To break apart and confine this reality into separate categories created by the mind was foolish and futile, much like trying to capture a ray of light inside a dark wooden box. This urge to categorize was the true fall of man [...] the infinite became finite, good opposed evil, thoughts hardened into beliefs, one's joys and discoveries became dreadful certainties, man became alienated from what he perceived as other ways and other things, and, ultimately, divided against himself, body and soul. [...] Always seeking meaning, always making their lives safe and comfortable, human beings do not truly live.”

“She had always lived her best life in dreams. She knew no greater pleasure than that moment of passage into the other place, when her limbs grew warm and heavy and the sparkling darkness behind her lids became ordered and doors opened; when conscious thought grew owl's wings and talons and became other than conscious.”

“At first Nick was able to divide this fantasy from reality, but as time passed, he became more sure that the fantasy was reality.”

“What the author of Genesis wants to tell us, I think, is that man, when united with God, is not divided. In this unity, there is no good and evil. All of our inclinations, even the sexual ones, are good when we are in Eden -- that is, when we walk with God and all our actions, words, and thoughts seek to follow His will. But man can choose to be separate from God, and in this separateness he creates evil by imagining ways to use what is good in ways that hurt him or others, and then acting upon what he imagines.”

“For if God Himself became man, this man, what else can this mean but that He declared himself guilty of the contradiction against Himself”

“I mean, the ones on trial are not like me in any way: they're a different kind of human being. They live in a different world, they think different thoughts, and their actions are nothing like mine. Between the world they live in and the world I live in there's this thick, high wall. At least, that's how I saw it at first. ...I became a lot less sure of myself. In other words, I started seeing it like this: that there really was no such thing as a wall separating their world from mine. Or if there was such a wall, it was probably a flimsy one made of papier-mache. The second I leaned on it, I'd probably fall right through and end up on the other side. Or maybe it's that the other side has already managed to sneak its way inside of us, and we just haven't noticed.”