“God saves - but not now, and not here. His salvation is on layaway. Like all grifters, He asks you to pay now and take it on faith that you will receive later. Whereas women offer a different sort of salvation, more immediate and fulfilling. They don't put off their love for a distant, ill-defined eternity but make a gift of it in the here and now, frequently to those who deserve it least. So it was in my case. So it is for many. The devil and woman have been allies against God from the beginning...”

“Women offer a different sort of salvation, more immediate and fulfilling. They don't put off their love for a distant, ill-defined eternity but make a gift of it in the here and now.”

“I see God now as an unimaginative writer of popular fictions, someone who builds stories around sadistic and graceless plots, narratives that exist only to express His terror of a woman's power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit, not as God thinks it ought to be. The author is unworthy of His own characters.”

“But God fears women even more that He fears the devil- and is right to. She, with her power to bring life into the world, was truly made in the image of the Creator, not man.”

“Oh, now don't act like the idea is so terrible. When you come down to it, what could be more romantic than a few hours of scrambling around in a cold, dripping hole known for occasionally flooding and drowning people?”

“Terry is sure that Ig has never even kissed another girl, let alone fucked one, and he has wished for a while now that Iggy had more experience. Not because Terry didn't want his brother to be with Merrin, but because...well, because. Because love requires context. Because first relationships are by their very nature immature. So Merrin wanted them both to have a chance to grow up. So what?”

“The soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. The soul would be no good to the devil if it could be destroyed. And it is not lost when placed in Satan's care, as is so often said. He always know exactly how to put his finger on it.”