James Morrow

Quotes

1. What enormous potential for intermittent happiness the world offered.

   p. 37

2. 

   The labels fascinated Julie—Cutty Sark, Dewar’s, Beefeater—each logo dense with staid print and Anglo-Saxon dignity, as if alcohol were really a type of literary criticism and not a leading cause of traffic fatalities and brain rot.

   p. 77

3. 

   “Don’t believe everything you hear about hell. Next time you run into some anti-hell propaganda, consider the source.”

   “You inflict eternal punishment on people,” Julie countered.

   “Merely because it’s our job. And remember, we persecute only the guilty, which puts us one up on most other institutions.”

   p. 162

4. 

   “Zolmec,” said Nazra, “has always taught that the greatest words are ‘I could very well be wrong.’”

   p. 185

5. 

   It was not a question of regressive old ideas versus enlightened new ideas, but of reasonable caution versus arrogant caprice.

   p. 46

6. 

   Children, being close to the ground, have a special rapport with insects.

   p. 17

7. 

   For moral reasons, the young Reverend Peter Sparrow declined to join the Saturday night gatherings of the Erebus Poker Club. Gambling, he knew, was Satan’s third favorite pastime, after sex and ecumenicalism.

   p. 97

8. 

   “Everyone here does think as I do,” replied Nefertiti Jones’s double, “and consequently I have no enemies.”

   p. 119

9. 

   The new homeland bulged with the sort of free-for-the-grabbing bounty that invites greed, envy, exploitation, profiteering, and politics.

   p. 12

10. 

    “It must have been hard converting your elders in the Pentagon to this view.”

    “Ever try stuffing a melted marshmallow up a wildcat’s ass? It can be done, but you have to like your job.”

    p. 165

11. 

    Now we’re getting somewhere, George told himself, although he sensed that this situation would not endure.

    p. 43

12. 

    Often Burne found himself saying, “I don’t think you would make a very good soldier,” and with grating predictability he heard that he wouldn’t make a very good pacifist.

    p. 188