“God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.”

“As far as God goes, I _am_ a nonbeliever. Still am. But when it comes to a devil---well, that's something else.”

“Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness... and perhaps even Satan - Satan, in spite of himself - somehow serves to work out the will of God.”

“Earth is a homicide victim. We lose our children. There are wars. Disease. And God comes strolling by like a cosmic Billie Burke.”

“But I'll tell you something, Father; you give me Regan's identical twin: same face, same voice, same smell, same everything down to the way she dots her i's, and still I'd know in a second that it wasn't really her! I'd know it! I'd know it in my gut and I'm telling you I know that thing upstairs is not my daughter! I know it! I know!”

“We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops---which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair.”

“The terror drifted over georgetown like the sun over a blind mans eyes”