Religion is passionate, reckless, destructive, idol-smashing. It's a martyr burning at the stake. It's a crown of thorns and a cross.

I don't see as it matters much how well you mean if it's harm you're doin'.

Here and there on the branch of an oak a congress of leaves still clung, rigid as flakes of bronze.

a man can break God's laws and be forgiven. That's what they teach us. But when he breaks Nature's laws, there's no forgiveness - and there's no escape. Sooner or later he pays the penalty, or his children pay it - or his children's children. It doesn't matter much. It must be paid.

A sickness ... defines margins, crystallizes the shape of things.

it was a sly trick of God's to give a man work to do - it kept him from asking questions that God couldn't answer.

God, what pathetic creatures had inherited the earth, to walk a little while with their eyes upon the stars and turn their gaze too soon upon the ground that held their feet!