“Question: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself is a kind of belief. Doubt. The human condition, but what of the angelic? Halfway between Allahgod and homosap, did they ever doubt? They did: challenging God's will one day they hid muttering beneath the Throne, daring to ask forbidden things: antiquestions. Is it right that. Could it not be argued. Freedom, the old antiquest. He calmed them down, naturally, employing management skills a la god. Flattered them: you will be the instruments of my will on earth, the salvationdamnation of man, all the usual etcetera. And hey presto, the end of protest, on with the haloes, back to work. Angels are easily pacified; turn them into instruments and they'll play your harpy tune. Human beings are tougher nuts, can doubt anything, even the evidence of their own eyes. Of behing-their-own-eyes. Of what, as they sink heavy-lidded, transpires behind closed peepers ... angels, they don't have much in the way of a will. To will is to disagree; not to submit; to dissent.”

“What is man—and of course the writer means all of us puny little insignificant creatures—what is a mere human being that God who made the immense universe should ever notice?' She chuckled. 'The sky does take you down to size.'Not even big as bugs. Not even a speck of dust to the nearest star,' Angel agreed.But the psalmist answers his own question. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor..." 'What?' Angel asked, not sure she had heard right.A little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor.'The real angels? Do you believe that?'Yes, Angel, I do. When people look down on me, and these days'—she laughed shortly—'these days everyone over the age of five does. When people look down on me, I remember that God looks at this pitiful, twisted old thing that I have become and crowns me with glory.”

“Plants, animals, men, angels, then God. Difference between men and angels is that men are stuck in a body. They feel pain, hunger, and thirst...But me and you, we don't have to feel them things...We can turn off the human condition.So maybe we're closer to the angels, you know? Creatures of the mind. A higher morality.The machine takes us deeper into our souls. That far inside, we're capable of anything. Way beyond right or wrong.”

“And yet when I wish to explore how faith works, I usually sneak in by the back door of doubt, for I best learn about my own need for faith during its absence. God's invisibility guarantees I will experience times of doubt. Everyone dangles on a pendulum that swings from belief to unbelief, back to belief, and ends - where?”

“Angels may be safe from damnation, but human beings are less fortunate things, and for them hell is always close”

“Ah!" thought Rodolphe, turning very pale, "that was what she came for." At last he said with a calm air— "Dear madame, I have not got them." He did not lie. If he had had them, he would, no doubt, have given them, although it is generally disagreeable to do such fine things: a demand for money being, of all the winds that blow upon love, the coldest and most destructive.”