there's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.

Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world.

I worry about you Bev. I worry a lot.

No one likes to see a government folder with his name on it.

You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold'. You knew, but you didn't understand." He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy's cold cheeks. "Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?

and now, all these years later, it seem to him that the most horrible fact of human existence was that broken hearts mended

Too often, in novels that are speculative, God is a kind of kryptonite, and that's about all that it is, and it goes back to Dracula, where someone dumps a crucifix in Count Dracula's face, and he pulls away and runs back into his house. That's not religion. That's some kind of juju, like a talisman.