God is foolish at times, but at least He's a gentleman. Dont you know that?" "I always thought of Him as a man," the woman said.

I kept thinking that. I don't know why it is I can't seem to learn that a woman'll do anything.

God is foolish at times, but at least He's a gentleman. Don't you know that?

Just like folks. Put off as long as she could having to be brave, knowing all the time that sooner or later she would have to be brave once so she could keep on calling herself a dog, and knowing beforehand what was going to happen when she done it.

I reckon she's right. I reckon if there's ere a man or woman anywhere that He could turn it all over to and go away with His mind at rest, it would be Cora. And I reckon she would make a few changes, no matter how He was running it. And I reckon they would be for man's good. Leastways, we would have to like them. Leastways, we might as well go on and make like we did.

When [God] aims for something to be always a-moving, He makes it longways, like a road or a horse or a wagon, but when He aims for something to stay put, He makes it up-and-down ways, like a tree or a man. . . . [I]f He'd a aimed for man to be always a-moving and going somewheres else, wouldn't He a put him longways on his belly, like a snake? It stands to reason He would. Anse in As I Lay Dying, pp. 34-5

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.

I recognised uneasily the hand of what I sometimes thought to be my personal nemesis, the spirit of farce.

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon.

Truth is terrific, reality is even better, but believability is the best of all

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.

It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all. By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all.