"Everyone seems absurdly rich and very drunk. I notice with annoyance that there’s no adherence to modesty here: I see short skirts and plenty of cleavage, bare necks adorned by jewels. I guess if you have enough money, the Church will overlook a selection of your sins."

"How many simple pleasures I denied myself, because I thought that’s what goodness was. How stupid that it took me until the end of the world to realize it was something else entirely."

"But I can’t justify the act to myself, no matter how much I like making out with the boy I’d be trying to save. That would be playing by Believer rules—telling myself that violence and the threat of it is okay, if that’s what it takes to get you what you want. “For God so loved the world,” says the Book of Frick, “that he sent us guns with which to protect our homes and women.”"

"Behind him shines the blinking neon of a casino:"

"I wonder if this is what bravery is: adrenaline plus love plus absolute stupidity."

"Believer culture seems to shift so quickly, from benign to terrifying and back again."

"(“For God saw that Americans were industrious and made money in His name, and he saw that it was good”). It’s one of the many parts of the Book of Frick that makes you wonder whether or not Frick was just straight-up on ’shrooms when he was writing it."

"It’s funny now to think that we were ever confused by extreme action taken in the name of God."

"I’ve always believed Frick to be detached from reality, but I thought he was just a megalomaniac, a manipulator, a con artist. Now I begin to slowly understand. He’s far more dangerous than any of those things. He’s a true Believer."

"Even now I think I could only list for him the various things I don’t believe in. But still I wish I could. Because I’m starting to narrow it down. I don’t believe in hate. I don’t believe in money. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe it’s too late."

"In addition to founding the Church itself, Frick was the CEO of its accompanying multimillion-dollar corporation. They publish the magazines and run the Church television networks, and they produce end-of-the-world provisions like these—bottles of Holy Spring Water, a bland SpaghettiOs knockoff called Christ Loops."

"“This whole country,” says my grandmother evenly, “supports a culture of ignorance and anti-intellectualism which posits that not understanding a phenomenon is just as valid as understanding one, and frankly I’m sick of it.”"

"“That’s part of the prophecy of the Rapture, right? The dead will rise and crash our parties?” He laughs. “Do you really think that’s a priority, for the reanimated corpses?” “Absolutely,” I say. “No French onion dip in purgatory.”"

"“I’m Harp,” my best friend says, business-like. “This is Viv. Personally, I think you guys would make really cute babies together.”"

"“I mean, these people really believe what they believe.” “But what they believe is so absurd.”"

"“But it was probably nothing.” “Nothing is nothing anymore, Viv.”"

"“What? Why the fuck are you smiling?” “Because you’re so like Winnie, it’s actually spooky. You both clearly possess the take-no-shit gene.”"

"We could conceivably slow this destruction down, but it would require huge overarching changes in the structure of our society—the kind of change we will never achieve so long as we remain distracted by imaginary acts of God."

"What Harp doesn’t understand is that I like my parents—current hiccups in sanity not withstanding."

"I’m starting to understand how little purchase the truth actually affords us in this world."

"I will never understand why Believers cling to this kind of language, this relentless empty optimism, plus all! those! exclamation! points!"

"Hard men and women, from Barion’s firsthand recollection: not always thinking of God but seeing Him hard as themselves when they did. Their descendants much the same, not as hard but needing that peculiarly American form of religious ecstasy blended of poverty, ignorance, degenerated mysticism, collected injuries and the need for vengeance."

"Smart eats, stupid starves."

"True believers coming to the fore with the same old theme—don’t you make out you’re better than us—defining a narrow God by what they themselves hated and feared."

"Woody had more talent than drive, but a musician, even a poor one, was preferable to a fanatic. He could only assault the ear."

"“If you are in trouble, so am I. Two rowers in a sinking lifeboat telling each other ‘I told you so’ doesn’t keep either from drowning.”"

"Countries are just like women. Sooner or later everyone loses their cherry and gets to be just another broad on the block."

"Coyle knew to its core the essence of Charity Stovall, who had lived her twenty years in the lower echelons of Christian belief, a lurid topography with no middle ground. Her theology was banal but rendered in full color, a Caucasian Green Pastures at one end, smoke, fire, pain—the whole Faustian, Exorcist claptrap at the other."

"Nemesis, come! And you unfeeling stars, I hurl defiance for reply, and cast into the balance for the world to see my soul ’gainst thy insensate cruelty."

"Honor thy stereotypes, the authors of thy thinking, for without them, thou wouldst have to see."

"The smaller the man, the larger his power fantasies."

"Infantile, needing to be the center and reason for creation, the less educated or advantaged subject needs a distorted miraculous theology to support a perilous existence, externally and constantly threatened as it is by “them.”"

"Subconsciously aware of the fragility of his artificial reality, the paranoiac must ever reinforce its defenses with more and more elaborate rationale. His virtues must be defined, his enemies painted in primary colors. The basic motive of fear is raised to mystic proportion; a cause, uniform, a symbol. He proclaims his purposes one with God’s. “No—” The central infection inflames and eventually mortifies the entire psyche until any healthy stimulus becomes alien."

"It wasn’t your usual vacation. But what’s so bad, Char? I’ve seen heaven and you’ve seen hell, and they’re just what? Common sense, funny and horrible with a lot of bullshit thrown in, just like the six o’clock news."

"“But what’s it mean,” Roy cried, agonized. “What is it for?” “Not for anything. It exists.”"

"“You must have been an evangelical.” “Tabernacle of the Born Again Savior,” Charity owned with wistful pride. “Not that it helped a whole lot.” “Indeed.” Jake sank again in his chair. “Tabernacle of the…the more shriveled the existence, the more elaborate the credentials. Virtue measured by what you wouldn’t do, at least under scrutiny, and others judged for what they would and got caught at. You don’t want Grace, Miss Stovall. You want to get even.”"

"Paranoia, the common cold of neurosis. The paranoiac, perceiving all external stimuli as threat, needs to see his enemies, not merely sense their external presence. Being imaginary, these threats must be fleshed out to visible targets, the more clearly defined the better."

"The therapists will have a field day and we’ll probably lose hordes to schizophrenia. But cry all they want, stomp around, kick furniture, the human race will get rid of their fairy-tale notions of good, evil and the cosmos, and by God—by Me, I guess—they will grow the hell up."

"You haven’t changed for hundreds of years, and your sins, such as they are, have not grown in complexity. A moment of yes in a lifetime of thou shalt not. Certain punishment out of a steaming Protestant imagination."

"I will not comment on your accent. Similes founder, metaphors fail."

"Hell might be a strain, she concluded, but you couldn’t beat it for the new and different or the interesting men."

"Religion is what you sing on Sunday, Miss Stovall. Your true faith is what you want all week."

"“One can think,” Jake mused over the chessboard. “If thought is desirable. For me it was a curse, an obsession, like chess. Always the intellectual yearning to be the man of action. To be, like Brutus, a fulcrum of history. That was denied me until one day when I—acted. I’ll never know whether I was right at the wrong time for my own sake or wrong at the right time for the sake of history.”"

"Was that what all my praying was about? “Lord Amighty, no wonder I am damned.” “No, Miss Stovall. Love and hell are alike in that respect; they are what you bring to them. The script is yours; only the props are furnished.”"

"Roy’s cry of horror filled of the universe, more horrible for the indifferent silence that swallowed it up."

"“We’re here with Judas Iscariot on the fringe of the delirious demonstration for Roy Stride. Judas, can you comment on the meteoric rise of Stride and the White Paladins?” Judas reached through the cab window and fetched his cap. “I’d say the hopeless schmucks have found the kind of government they deserve. Always do.”"

"“Got no time for games,” Charity told the dog. “Hope you don’t bite.” “Not at all. The hound yawned to his ears. But beware the owner. He thinks.”"

"Your world is a sewer, Mr. Stride. One can almost absolve you for being one of its diseases."

"Roy’s a fuck-up like Hitler. What’s the opposite of fail-safe? Success-safe. These turkeys have got to lose because most of their thinking is off the wall to begin with. Think about it: there’s Adolf rearranging Europe like a hyperactive housewife, shrewd as they come, and still getting his horoscope done every goddamned day, which is like seriously figuring Santa Claus into the national budget. These people are not coming from common sense; they simply can’t think big."

"Sorlij tried to imagine a place less organized than this. The concept was a challenge."