“It’s a way of talking about lust without talking about lust, he told them. It is a way of talking about sex, and fear of sex, and death, and fear of death, and what else is there to talk about?”

“Talking to the British about sex is like talking to Americans about reading. Nobody does it so why talk about it?”

“Talk's the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death.”

“But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word "hell," what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn't his point. He's often not talking about "beliefs" as we think of them--he's talking about anger and lust and indifference. He's talking about the state of his listeners' hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.”

“Death was like an unpleasant neighbor. You didn’t talk about him for fear he might hear you and decide to pay a visit.”

“I didn't want to hear about death. It was all anyone talked about, even when no one was actually talking about it.”