"Men like Jackson were so upright and honest-seeming, but Hooch knew that there wasn't no such thing as a good man, just a man who wasn't bought yet, or wasn't in deep enough trouble, or didn't have the guts to reach out and take what he wanted. That's all that virtue ever boiled down to, so far as Hooch ever saw in his life."

"This is what I want to do forever, each one thought. Rise in the morning, come to the mill, and work all day with him beside me. Never mind that the wish was impossible. Never mind that they might never see each other again, once the boy left for his apprenticeship back in the place of his birth. That only added to the sweetness of the moment, which would soon become a memory, would soon become a dream."

"I own the whole world, and folks haven't been keeping up too well on the payments."

"“I’ve never seen a soft heart turn hard,” said Taleswapper. “At least not without good reason.”"

"A man who can't read only knows what other folks tell him."

"It is a weak man who blames his failures on the strength of others."

"“I've done my best, but the boy is unteachable. He doubts everything, and contests each point of theology as if it were required to meet the same tests of logic and consistency that prevail in the world of science.” “In other words, he expects your doctrines to make sense.” “He is unwilling to accept the idea that some things remain mysteries, comprehensible only to the mind of God. Ambiguity makes him saucy, and paradox causes open rebellion.” “An obnoxious child.”"

"Just because the only way you can maintain control over your bodily passions is to sit straight in your chair, knees together, hands delicately arranged in our lap, fingers tightly intertwined, does not mean that I am required to do the same."

"You can't tell real from a rutabaga."

"Religion makes them crazy. Not a woman I ever met wasn't crazy with religion."

"It just gripes me hollow, the way God always sneaks in to take the credit."

"A duel is just two murderers who agree to take turns trying to kill each other."

"If something just plain didn’t make sense to Alvin, he didn’t believe it, and no amount of quoting from the Bible would convince him. Now Taleswapper was telling him that he was right to refuse to believe things that made no sense."

"Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth."

"Just because you believe it doesn’t make it so."

"“What kind of stupid tale is that, when we just have to look at each other to know it isn’t true?” “It has problems, I admit.”"

"“You must be a prophet right enough,” said Alvin Junior, “cause I can’t understand a thing you said.”"

"The most evil creatures don’t desire the destruction of everything—they only desire to exploit it for themselves."

"“I don’t hold with prophets,” said Alvin. “Near as I can tell, they end up just as dead as the next man.”"

"“I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this chapel were shut, And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door, So I turned to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore, And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires.”"

"Sunday morning, he decided, is designed to let sinners have a sample of the first day of eternity in hell."

"Taleswapper looked at Miller. “I'm nothing,” he said. “A Christian isn’t nothing,” said Taleswapper. “I'm no Christian, either.” “Ah,” said Taleswapper. “A Deist, then, like Tom Jefferson.” The children murmured at his mention of the great man's name. “Taleswapper, I'm a father who loves his children, a husband who loves his wife, a farmer who pays his debts, and a miller without a millstone.”"

"As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys."

"“I was ordained,” said the preacher. “No one ordains artists. They ordain themselves.” Just as Taleswapper had expected. The preacher retreated to authority as soon as he feared his ideas could not stand on their own merit. Reasonable argument was impossible when authority became the arbiter."

"I always tell what I believe. Whether it's true, I'm no more sure than any man."

"The only true vision comes not from God but from the inmost recesses of the human mind."

"It's plain that if I married you for brains I was plumb cheated."

"She grunted. “Nothing unusual?” “That’s right.” “Well, if you ask me, that’s pretty unusual right there, if a body was smart enough to notice it.”"

"Land was what they wanted, as if the mere ownership of dirt could turn a peasant into a squire."

"The billion billion paths of his life lay open before him, waiting for his first choices, for the first changes in the world around him to eliminate a million futures every second."

"That's the way it was then, you see. Folks noticed other people's trouble every bit as quick as if it was their own."

"They won't be required to sacrifice anything in order to belong to your assembly. A religion that is all sweetness, but no light; all form, but no substance; all tradition, but no precept."

"Just because you know I had no other choice doesn't make the anger go away. I understand that. But you're a man now. You can put away these childish things."

"The doctrine he was going to be teaching, starting tonight, was not the sort of ideology that would stir souls; no one would die for this religion. It would only attracts converts by promising a return to old tradition and by seeming to be the religion of the future."

"Wanting to is the whole lesson; all the rest is practice."

"It occurred to me that if my friends were loathsome, perhaps I needed to learn from my enemies."

"Which is the greater wrong? To hurt the unforgiving one, or hurt the one who has forgiven all?"

"That's one of those questions, whether human beings are really capable of change, or if all seeming changes are really a matter of framing the existing character in a different moral situation."

"Don't you hate it when somebody knows you better than you know yourself?"

"Law can change how people behave when others are watching — that's all."

"You always do that. Make all the questions harder. I make them truer."

"If a father commands a son to commit a crime so terrible that the son can't do it and live with himself, then is it betrayal for the son to disobey his father?"

"Only boys were so foolish that they actually believed their arguments were their reasons."

"Boys always argued as if they knew then had the forces of logic on their side, even when they were being completely irrational."

"I have no secret thoughts... Or rather, they're not secret because I've withheld them — if they're unknown, it's because no one asked."

"Maybe if I could bear my life as it is for one day, for one hour, for one minute, I could forget my wish to be something else."

"Humans, in order to rise above the animals, had learned how to convert themselves into nothing more than organs or limbs or even disposable fingernails and hair of a larger metaphorical organism."

"I'll be dead and you'll think about this day and wonder which of us was more the slave, you or me!"

"What difference does it make, whether we keep our silence because [they] force us or because we're afraid they might force us?"

"He isn't insane, he's simply as trapped in his life as I am in mine. That makes us friends."