“Maybe this kind of devotion is sinful," I continued. "Perhaps it was even the origin of sin. But you and I are already damned.”

“I felt the reckless abandon of one who knows she stands already among the damned. "Why not, then, another sin?”

“Father, bless me for I have sinned, I did an original sin… I poked a badger with a spoon.”

“In the deepest sense, the being in a state of sin is the sin, the particular sins are not the continuation of sin, they are expressions of its continuation.”

“Perhaps his next task should be to concoct an eighth deadly sin. Or he could work toward finding even a dozen. The devil knew he'd worn out the original seven.”

“Ignorance of the law of irreducibility was no excuse. I could no longer excuse myself with the claim that I didn't know the law -- for knowledge of self and of the world is the law that, even though unattainable, cannot be broken, and no one can excuse himself by saying that he doesn't know it. . . . The renewed originality of the sin is this: I have to carry out my unknowing, I shall be sinning originally against life.”