“Do I believe in God? Sure. So I believe the Bible is the arbiter of theological knowledge? There it gets a little hazy.”

“The whites do not believe in such things," Charley said."Believe?" Tupshin was bewildered. "What is this talk of belief? Do they not believe in the sea, then? Or the mountains? There is a thing which is, it is not for believing or not believing.”

“The nonbelievers need the believers. They are desperate to have someone believe." "As belief shrinks from the world, people find it more necessary than ever that someone believe... Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes.”

“They’ve grown comfortable with their money,’ I said. ‘They genuinely believe they’re entitled to it. This conviction gives them a kind of rude health. They glow a little.”

“There's just so much time set aside for baffled reaction. I believe we've reached the limit. ”

“Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure that they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes. There must always be believers. Fools, idiots, those who hear voices, those who speak in tongues. We are your lunatics. We surrender our lives to make your nonbelief possible. You are sure that you are right but you don’t want everyone to think as you do. There is no truth without fools. We are your fools, your madwomen, rising at dawn to pray, lighting candles, asking statues for good health, long life.”

“I believed we could know what was happening to us. We were not excluded from our own lives. That is not my head on someone else's body in the photograph that's introduced as evidence. I didn't believe that nations play-act on a grand scale. I lived in the real.”