“What grows best in the heat: fantasy; unreason; lust.”

“Unhappy endings might seem more realistic than happy ones, but reality often contained a streak of fantasy that realism lacked.”

“India, the new myth--a collective fiction in which anything was possible, a fable rivalled only by the two other mighty fantasies: money and God.”

“When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.”

“My parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear, assuming that in fact, like my parents, they weren't interested in gods, and that this uninterest was 'normal.' You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again.”

“we can best understand the nature of this culture if we say that it found its truest mirror in a corpse”

“They feared her [the dream beloved], knowing that, being impossible, she was irresistable, and that was why the king loved her best.”