Writing my own novels in the '90s...I never imagined that in ten years, science and rationality would require explanation and defense in a world rocked and ruled by religious fervor.
Later that summer, as rain fell, such a moment shimmered and paused on the brink, and then began the ancient dance of numbers: two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and a new life took root and began...
Trust in God could impose an additional burden on good people slammed to their knees by some senseless tragedy. An atheist might be no less staggered by such an event, but nonbelievers often experienc...
In the beginning, Scripture taught, there was the Word, and Danny would come to believe that the two great gifts his God had given to the species He loved were time, which divides experience, and lang...
What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren't human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever.
They spoke then, with the dear and ordinary intimacy of the well-married in the eye of a storm. [369]
You know what? I really resent the idea that the only reason someone might be good or moral is because they're religious. I do what I do, Anne said, biting off each word, without hope of reward or fea...
No one who does not live with constant pain can imagine the toll it takes. The way it grinds you down. The sheer damnable tedium of it.
[Emilio] felt once more the strangely visceral thrill of trying to disprove a hypothesis he suspected was robust.
Sailing is the perfect antidote for age, Reyes. Everything you do on a sailboat is done slowly and thoughtfully. Most of the time, an old body is entirely capable of doing whatever needs to be done wh...
Like we say back home, when you find a turtle settin’ on top of a fencepost, you can be pretty damn sure he didn’t get there on his own.
Its not lying, it's remembering things the way they should have been.
I'll take honest arrogance over fake humility any day.
He's not a bad guy, John. It's human nature. He wanted it to be some mistake I made that he wouldn't have made, some flaw in me that he didn't share, so he could believe it wouldn't have happened to h...
Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between ‘That doesn’t make sense’ and ‘I don’t understand.’ Then I must be very wisdom. I don’t understand anything.
It was then that she experienced an instant of unprecedented clarity, a moment of wholly unanticipated certainty that God was real. The sensation fled almost as quickly as it came but left in its wake...
I movin' to Arizona! Dammit, there is nothin' there but gravel and scorpions.
Did you think you were the only one? Is it possible that you are so arrogant? he asked, in tones of wonderment. Sandoz was blinking rapidly now. Did you think you were the only one ever to wonder if w...
Bein' born is craps, he decided. He glanced at Morg and let loose that sly, lopsided smile of his. How we live is poker.
And you believe you will succeed, where God has failed me?