“God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.”

“It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”

“It is because people live in the things they possess instead of in their relationship to God that God seems at times to be cruel.”

“Is God a cruel bastard or what, to make love so painful?”

“Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"”

“Mort was already aware that love made you feel hot and cold and cruel and weak, but he hadn't realized that it could make you stupid.”

“That's the nub of the thing, you see — seriousness of spirit. It doesn't mean heaviness of heart, or a lack of fantasy, but it does mean an awareness of influences that touch our lives, sometimes in ways that seem cruel and unfeeling, and sometimes in ways that open up a glory which can never be forgotten.”

“He would find a way to make it work, because he finally understood that sometimes you have to raise your expectations. And sometimes you need to make a claim on the world and the people you love to get what you most desire”

“It was a beautiful afternoon; one to make you realise that God really can be very good sometimes with weather and scenery.”

“You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.”