“It occurs to me that my thinking has been faulty: we do not feel God's absence. We feel the absence of all that is lost to God, that which has set itself apart and refuses to return, believing itself to be in exile.”

“Could your god and this infernal be called enemies, then?""It is more complicated than that. God knew what was going to happen, of course. The divine has a plan for the infernal. Because all is of God and nothing of God can truly be destroyed, the infernal must instead be transmuted. It must realise its error, comprehend the illogicality of its existence, and choose to become part of the divine. When all is converted, the erroneous potential will no longer exist. Perfection will be achieved. We are all subjects, substances, in this greatest alchemy, the Great Work of God.”

“Your people are not unwise, after all: love of the perfect Deity may prevent us from loving imperfect man! But God's will is to restore the lost; and that can't be done without loving them.”

“Think of a potter taking a misshapen bowl from his wheel and pounding it back into the tub of clay. A soul suffers while it is being pounded in this way, and suffers until it ceases to be. You are pounded down, and that which was you gets into something else. God tries again, and tries until the Work is complete. Meanwhile you, my son, are long gone”

“My soul longs for God, but a man is not just his soul, is he? Terrible to say, my clay lusts after the clay of nubile girl. To soothe my guilt, and please forgive my indelicacy, I have convinced myself that I seek to find God again in their arms and their unmentionable places.”

“How long before we devise a means of telling horoscopes with gas lamps?”

“The wisdom which is now conventional claims that light creates shadows. But the facts are otherwise. Darkness came first and is infinitely older and more enduring than light. Light borrows a little space; then it dies or moves on, and the dark exists again as if it had never been disturbed.”