“Eve and the apple was the first great step in experimental science.”

“I'd known since girlhood that I wanted to be a book editor. By high school, I'd pore over the acknowledgments section of novels I loved, daydreaming that someday a brilliant talent might see me as the person who 'made her book possible' or 'enhanced every page with editorial wisdom and insight.' Could I be the Maxwell Perkins to some future Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe?”

“One of the liabilities of being a deep thinker, Wyatt mused, was that it left him vulnerable to existential crises.”

“He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom.”

“Like Eve, you're so quick to eat from the tree of knowledge.”

“I gasp, and I'm Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he's the serpent, and I cannot resist.”

“Most of what is wrong in horizontal church flows from attempts to get green apples interested in Jesus. Green apples are very articulate about that they do and don't want in church. They don't want to hear about money, because that is one of their idols; they don't want to be told about sin, because that assaults pride; no interest in pressure to decide for Jesus, because that threatens their autonomy. Sadly when church becomes what green apples must have or they won't come. It ceases to be what it must be for God to attend. Church needs to be offensive to green apples or it can be helpful to those who are ripe.”