“All that human energy, wasted, in response to the simple fact that we know we are going to die, and we don't know what happens after, and we're afraid that this life is all there is.”

“It isn't about miracles or proof or having God on speed dial. You want to be close to God? Reach down and help your neighbor. Faith without works is dead...”

“Love is a verb.”

“If we place the books randomly, how are they ever found again?'She smiled. "The books just seem to know to go where they'll be found.”

“Despite all their fears, we ask very little of the ones who never loved us. We do not ask for sympathy or pain or compassion. We simply want to know why.”

“For all their simplicity, humans could be remarkably perceptive, though they didn't know it most of the time, and their ability to thrust straight through deception and see to the heart of truth was often lost with childhood. By adulthood humans had trained themselves to be coy and manipulative in response to the coy and manipulative society in which they lived, which led them to believe that everyone was trying to be as coy and manipulative as themselves and were uncertain about what was true and what was not. Beyond their few flashes of clarity, everything became a muddle of colliding doubts.”

“It's a lady with a stick. Are we pirates or what?" They pondered this fact for a moment."It's a big stick," observed one of his fellows.”