James K. Morrow: Trending quotes (page 4)

““You’re not very religious, are you?” said Irene.
“I’m more into gravity.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 15 (p. 256)

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

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 10 (p. 119)

Thinking

““Actually, the answer’s quite simple.” Two red eyes floated in the mist.
“Really? Tell me. Why does God allow evil?”
The red eyes vanished, leaving only the lantern and the night. “Because power corrupts,” said Wyvern’s disembodied voice. “And absolute power corrupts absolutely.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 85)

God , Evil , Night

“Sneer, frown, and be miserable, for tomorrow you live.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 17 (p. 202)

“That maxim, it’s not an argument against atheism—it’s an argument against foxholes.”

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 8, “Famine” (p. 213)

“Like most visionaries, The Teller saw the distant future with optical-glass clarity, the intermediate future with beeswax clarity, and the immediate future with the clarity of dark glasses dipped in tar.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 13 (p. 153)

Distant , Future

“Under the midnight sun, despair acquires the intensity of sex, insomnia the vehemence of art.”

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 12, “Father” (p. 337)

Art , Sex , Sun , Despair

““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.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 9 (p. 162)

People , Hell , Time

“Luli turned out to be uncompromising and brilliant. She could prosecute honey before a jury of bears and win.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 2 (p. 21)

“You wouldn’t like him. Major fanatic. Confuses migraine headaches with God.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 84)

God

“As a race of scientists and thinkers,” she concluded, “we cannot claim with absolute certainty that Teot Yon’s personality is now beyond Heaven’s gates or inside Satan’s stewpot or about to enter the embryo of a bull. Some of us subscribe to the Afterworld Hypothesis, some to less cheerful views. We all know that as an empirical event Teot Yon’s existence is over, and it is time for his molecules to become air and ash and after that—where will his drifting pieces go and what new things will they help to form? Let the transformation begin!”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 19 (p. 234)

Time , Help , Personality

“There are none so blind as those who see angels…None so deaf as those who hear gods.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 17 (p. 288)

God , Angels

““There’s something else, Beverly. I’m a minister of the Lord. This will be unusual for me, a kind of experiment.”
“I know all about it, Reverend. You folks do more experimenting than Princeton’s entire physics department.””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 4 (p. 66)

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

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 4 (p. 46)

Idea , Question

“Her libido blazed to life. She smiled, impressed by the party-crashing shamelessness of sex, its willingness to show up anywhere—a funeral, a sermon, a final farewell. This was the way to go out, all right, thumbing your labia at the cosmos.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 17 (p. 285)

Life , Smile , Sex , Way

“I know the God hypothesis has its partisans, but, oh, what a boring idea. Where did the universe come from? He did it. How do we account for rivers and rocks and ring-tailed lemurs? He made them. Ho-hum.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 5 (p. 108)

God , Idea , Universe

““What’s theodicy?” asked Anthony.
“Hard to explain.”
“Sounds like idiocy.”
“Much of it is.””

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 2, “Priest” (p. 38)

“It’s an old story, perhaps the oldest on earth,” Joan said. “The sky rumbles, the clouds congeal, the sun spasms. Is that a saint I see on high? An angel? The Lord God Jehovah himself? Now a holy voice booms down, instructing the poor prophet to grab a sword and thrust it into a fellow human, or perhaps a hundred fellow humans, or even a million if the cause is sufficiently sacred. The prophet never talks back. The tradition existed before me. It flourishes to this day. The sword, the blood, the freshly created corpses littering the battlefield, exuding the stink of epiphany.”

James K. Morrow

Source: The Philosopher's Apprentice (2008), Chapter 10 (p. 243)

God , Angels , Sun

“Francis had always been ecumenical in his atheism. He was as prepared to disbelieve in this Tolca character as he was to disbelieve in Yahweh, Jesus, Buddha, Vishnu, or any of the other words for what his father used to call “forcing yourself to misperceive the obvious.””

James K. Morrow

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 7 (p. 83)

“Hell was not perfect, but it was paradise compared with New Jersey.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 10 (p. 174)

Hell , Perfection