“And you know what? If there is a God, and it's that same God who's so eager to have temples built in honor of his greatness, and wars fought over him, and people dropping to their knees telling him...”

“Dex's mother knew she should be afraid for her daughter. This, she'd been told, was the tragedy of being a girl. To live in fearit was the fate of any parent, maybe, but the special provenance of a...”

“It's significantly more satisfying to kick a wall than it is to kick thin air. For the rebellious teen- or the teen who wants to feel like a rebel- a clearly defined law gives you something to defi...”

“Popularity gives you power only over people who care about being popular. Ostracism gives you power only over those who fear being ostracized.”

“A fundamentalist is someone who wants to substitute what he believes for what you believe," Max said. "And someone who thinks he knows the will of God better than anyone else.”

“I longed to return to that bloody riverbank, to throw myself in the path of the final arrow, to die ignorant, and so, in love. Better to be killed by an arrow than by the words of the one I most tr...”

“Stop fighting me!" he said, trying to pull on the arm he held.He was in a precarious position himself, straddling the rail as he tried to lean over far enough to get me and actually hold onto me.Le...”

“All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine...”

“Why is it that blood, rather than peace, sells?”

“The truly revolutionary promise of our nation's founding document is the freedom to pursue happiness-with-a-capital-H. ”

“If every life is a river, then it's little wonder that we do not even notice the changes that occur until we are far out in the darkest sea. One day you look around and nothing is familiar, not eve...”

“Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the m...”