We'd all do well to start over again, preferably with kindergarten.

People stopped calling themselves Freethinkers because it was so specifically German and anything German was terribly unpopular because of the two world wars. My family became Unitarians instead - it's the same sort of thing.

The name of the new religion, said Rumfoord, is The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. . . The two chief teachings of this religion are these: Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.

Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.

What had made me move through so many dead and pointless years was curiosity.

Scum of the Earth as some may be in their daily lives, they can all be saints in emergencies.

The surface of Earth heaved and seethed in fecund restlessness. Earth was most fertile where the most death was.