“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

“There is nothing that isn't true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not.”

“If religion is true, one must believe. And if one chooses not to believe, one’s choice is marked under the category of a refusal, and is thus never really free: it has the duress of a recoil.” With literary belief, however, “one is always free to choose not to believe.” This, Wood argues, is the freedom of literature; it is what constitutes its “reality.”

“Faith is believing in something you know isn't true.”

“To believe in what you don’t know is as true as to believe in what you do know as long as life is an illusion.”

“We can lie to ourselves, saying we believe one thing, and sometimes we convince other's it's true, with the hope that by convincing others, we can convince ourselves. Wars are often waged not because of what we believe, but because of the things we want others to believe.”