“women are so suspicious of any interest that has not some obvious motive behind it, so terribly accustomed to concealment and suppression, that they are off at the flicker of an eye turned observingly in their direction.”

“So odd. Most women of his acquaintance relied on physical beauty and charm to mask their less-pleasant traits. This girl did the opposite, hiding everything interesting about herself behind a prim, plain facade.What other surprises was she concealing?”

“In the twentieth century, nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed as in America---and nowhere else was there such a deep interest in it.”

“Church leaders raised on rationalism lead ministries where the supernatural, the Vertical, is suppressed and where God Himself is at best an observer and certainly seldom, if ever, and obvious participant in church.”

“The problem with the Bible, the Qur'an, the Torah - or any sacred text - as an authority is that so much depends on how the text is read and the interests of the reader. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, apartheid, the suppression of women, the 'evils' of sexuality, the 'evils' of homosexuality, a male-only priesthood, the denial of any priests at all, the supremacy of the Pope, the irrelevance of the Pope, the authority of the Church, a denial of the authority of the Church, a feminist agenda, war, pacifism and almost every other position that people may wish to hold.”

“The romantic chivalric tradition takes, or at any rate has in the past taken, the young man's eye off women as they are, as companions in shipwreck not guiding stars.”