What is written beneath this heavy handsome book cover will count, so sayeth this cover.

What I did was take the Jesus of the Gospels, the Son of God, the Son of the Virgin Mary, and sought to make Him utterly believable, a vital breathing character.

…being an atheist required discipline very like that of being Catholic. One could never yield to the idea of a supernatural authority, no matter how often one might be tempted. To think that a personal God had made the world was to yield to a demonic and superstitious and destructive belief.

I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste.

I left Christianity because I wanted to be a moral person. That is why I left. I no longer believed in its lies.

But during all these years I had a vague but persistent desire to return to New Orleans. I never forgot New Orleans. And when we were in tropical places and places of those flowers and trees that grow in Louisiana, I would think of it acutely and I would feel for my home the only glimmer of desire I felt for anything outside my endless pursuit of art.

What is written beneath this heavy handsome book cover will count, so sayeth this cover.