“Prayer is based on the remote possibility that someone is actually listening; but so is a lot of conversation. If the former seems far-fetched, consider the latter: even if someone is listening to ...”

“Plato offers the amazing idea that contemplation of the way things really are is, in itself, a purifying process that can bring human beings into the only divinity there is.”

“[Based upon the message of "nothing new under the sun" in Ecclesiastes,] If nothing ever changes, then God has no plan.”

“Jack Miles's wonderful literary reading of the Hebrew Bible as a biography of God offers the insight that after the Book of Job, God never speaks again. God may seem to silence Job, but Job silence...”

“We look before and after,And pine for what is not;Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell Of saddest thought.”

“I know why we laugh. We laugh because it hurts, and it's the only thing to make it stop hurting.”

“MARCUS ANDRONICUS: Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?TITUS ANDRONICUS: Ha, ha, ha!MARCUS ANDRONICUS: Why dost thou laugh? it fits not with this hour.TITUS ANDRONICUS: Why, I have not anoth...”