As it is, plain reasoning assures me I am not indispensable to the universe: but with this reasoning, somehow, does not travel my belief.

Good and evil keep very exact accounts... and the face of every man is their ledger.

I fear You and, yes, I love You: and yet I cannot believe. Why could You not let me believe, where so many believed? Or else, why could You not let me deride, as the remainder derided so noisily? O God, why could You not let me have faith? for You gave me no faith in anything, not even in nothingness. It was not fair.

What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. . . . But you, I think, have always comprehended this.

Literature is a vast bazaar where customers come to purchase everything except mirrors.

What am I that I am called upon to have prejudices concerning the universe?

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.