“If pinpointing God's presence were really that simple, then he supposed the beaches would be more crowded in the mornings. They would be filled with people on their own quests, instead of people jogging or walking their dogs or fishing in the surf.”

“She walked on, comforted by the surf, by the one perpetual moment of beach-time, the now-and-always of it.”

“The first thing I do every morning is go online to check the surf. If the waves are good, I'll go surf. The beach is 10 minutes away.”

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”

“What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.”

“People say that knowledge is power. The more knowledge, the more power. Suppose you knew the winning numbers for the lottery? All of them? Not guessed them, not dreamed them, but really knew them? What would you do? You would run to the store. You would mark those numbers on the play card. And you would win…Same for killing people.”

“If human nature were unchangeable, as ignorant people still suppose it to be, the situation would indeed be hopeless.”

“The sun just touched the morning;
The morning, happy thing,
Supposed that he had come to dwell,
And life would be all spring.”

“It's such a simple thing, really. It's an awareness that the other people in the world are other people, and that you are one of them. That every time you have a chance to help somebody out, to do what's right instead of what you think you're supposed to do, you should do it.”

“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.”