“Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.”

“Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level.”

“Do you know what passion is?”I blink, confused.“Most people think it only means desire. Arousal. Wild abandon. But that’s not all. The word derives from the Latin. It means suffering. Submission. Pain and pleasure, Nikki. Passion.”

“People derived too much pleasure from seeing their fellow man morally humiliated to spoil that pleasure by hearing out an explanation.”

“Jesus was not content to derive his ethics from the scriptures of his upbringing. He explicitly departed from them. [...] Since a principal thesis of this chapter is that we do not, and should not, derive our morals from scripture, Jesus has to be honoured as a model for that very thesis.”

“God created us with sexual passion so that there would be language to describe what it means to cleave to him in love and what it means to turn away from him to others.”