The problem with introspection is that it has no end.

If the last to know he’s an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself, he reflected.

God can be good and terrible-not in succession-but at the same time. This is why we seek a mediator between us and him; we approach him through the mediating priest and attenuate and enclose him through the sacraments. It is for our own safety: to trap him within confines which render him safe.

I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards.

I must admit that the existence of Disneyland (which I know is real) proves that we are not living in Judaea in 50 AD. . . . Saint Paul would never go near Disneyland. Only children, tourists, and visiting Soviet high officials ever go to Disneyland. Saints do not.

For each person there is a sentence—a series of words—which has the power to destroy them.

Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.