Choosing is existence. To the extent that you don't choose, you don't exist.
Tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and lay open the soul of the doer.
Nobody knew how to be what they were right.
The Bible is not man's word about God, but God's word about man.
The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world.
If you are a novelist of a certain type of termperament, then what you really want to do is re-invent the world. God wasn't too bad a novelist except he was a Realist.