I don't expect Christians to see God as a metaphor, but that's what he is. Perhaps it might be clearer to call him a character in fiction, and a very interesting one too: one of the greatest and most complex villains of all - savage, petty, boastful and jealous, and yet capable of moments of tenderness and extremes of arbitrary affection - for David, for example. But he's not real, any more than Hamlet or Mr Pickwick are real. They are real in the context of their stories, but you won't find them in the phone book.

For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.

We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.

Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all.

Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died.

He dared to do what men and women don't even dare to think. And look what he's done already: he's torn open the sky, he's opened the way to another world. Who else has ever done that? Who else could think of it?

Seems to me-" Lee said, feeling for the words, "seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed.