“At the heart of my argument is the view that religious faith, far from being inevitably on the side of the status quo, should on principle hold this world to higher standards.”

“Religious people should always be wary of the ways in which political power is wielded and skeptical of how economic privileges are distributed. They should also be mindful of how their own traditions have been used for narrow political purposes, and how some religious figures have manipulated the faith to aggrandize their own power. The doctrine of original sin and the idea of a fallen side of human nature apply to people who are religious no less than those who are not.”

“...if Clinton's answers come off as well-intended lectures, Obama is offering soaring sermons and generational opportunity. In 1960, the articulate Adlai Stevenson compared his own oratory unfavorably with John F. Kennedy's. "Do you remember," Stevenson said, "that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke,' but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, 'Let us march.' " At this hour, Obama is the Democrats' Demosthenes.”

“So, what if everything in life is an illusion? Well, choose your illusion; Don't let it choose you.”

“My heart, always so strong in the past, was like the fishnet stockings that clung to my legs—torn, shredded, and full of gaping holes.”

“And on the sidewalks, after they've emerged from the stations, after being sandpapered by the jostling and scraping that a city like this does, all the lives they've hoarded, all the ghosts they've carried, all the inversions they've made for protection, all the scars and marks and records for recognition - the whole heterogeneous baggage falls out with each step on the pavement. There's so much spillage.”

“So it’s fate then?” I asked with him so close my lips brushed the line of his jaw with each word, “Us being together?”“Absolutely,” Calvin said with a low growl. Then he lifted my chin, tilting my head back, and kissed me deeply.Who was I to argue with Fate?”