Source: The Ruling Class: A Baroque Comedy
“When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.”
Variant: I will prove myself strong when they think I am sick. I will prove myself brave when they think I am weak -Cady Sinclair
Source: We Were Liars
Si je crois en Dieu? Oui, quand je travaille. Quand je suis soumis et modeste, je me sens tellement aidé par quelqu'un qui me fait faire des choses qui me surpassent. Pourtant je ne me sens envers lui aucune reconnaissance car c'est comme si je me trouvais devant un prestidigitateur dont je ne puis percer les tours.
1940s, Jazz (1947)
When asked about listening to yourself.
Company Rules Interview https://companyrules.home.blog/2019/05/27/welcome-guest-dj-antonio-fresco/ (2019)
Author's Remarks.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (2003)
Context: I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty. There are some ten thousand religious sects — each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain — which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief. And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why — which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.
“I don't understand how people can believe in God, even when I myself think of him everyday.”
The Book of Delusions (1936)
“When I was a boy, I thought myself a man. Now that I am a man, I find myself a boy.”
as quoted by Horatio B. Williams, Thomas Young, The Man and Physician, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 20, 35-49 (1930).
Quoted by Jan Lundius, in Does WFP Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?, Inter Press Service News Agency, (December 2020)
