James Morrow Quotes

Dexter Padula, a member of that ubiquitous academic breed, the professional graduate student, forever revising his dissertation while eyeing external reality with the anxious demeanor of a nursing infant struggling to imagine life beyond the tit.

A second slash ended the monster’s misery. So, he thought, this is how my Earthling ancestors ran their affairs. This is how lands were won, empires expanded, insurrections resisted, prisoners taken, slaves kept, heretics converted, captives made loquacious. For the first time in his life, Minnix felt himself a part of history.
History, he decided, was a terrible idea.

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.

It was the most portentous mission since Saul of Tarsus has suffered an epileptic seizure and called it Christianity.

There’s nothing quite so pernicious as wishful thinking.

Francis realized he was afflicted with what his father used to term “an erection of the curiosity organ.”

To close the gap between jurisprudence and justice would require a canon of a hundred million laws.

To George, Overwhite still seemed like a windbag, but he was obviously a resourceful and intelligent one, a windbag woven of the finest material.

Father says don’t kill your principles just because the government is paying for the funeral.

He set down the paddle, lowered his head, and, as tears squirted from his eyes, began pondering the curious fact that in the entire Book of Job the sufferer never once lamented the loss of his children.

When a species fixates on the supernatural, it ceases to mature.

Her audacity turned him on. There was nobody quite so arousing, he decided, as a worthy opponent.

On your planet, how do you tell somebody that you love her?"
"It's very complicated. You say, 'I love you,' and then you stand back and see what happens.

Asia gave us dowry deaths and the caste system. Africa elevated famine to an art form. North America cultivated chattel slavery for far longer than I would have dared hope; South America has done things with political oppression that I am obliged to call brilliant; Australia showed the world that the only good aborigine is a dead aborigine; and Antarctica has fabulous weather. Of all the continents that constitute Earth’s terrain, however, Europe remains dearest to my heart and closest to my soul.
I allude here not to the sweatshops, the world wars, or totalitarian socialism (though none of these innovations has escaped my notice) but to the fact that the European imagination endowed me with a degree of glamour—you might even say charm—that in pre-coma times enabled me to function with extraordinary effectiveness. The concept of an Evil One is intrinsic to Islam, of course; the ancient Hebrews had their “adversary,” their satan; the Egyptians feared a dark deity called Set; Zoroastrians believed in Ahriman, essence of destruction (forever warring with Ohrmazd, source of all things bright and beautiful). But only in Christian Europe did the Prince of Hell acquire a personality as vivid and endearing as any you will meet in a Dickens novel.

Curse God, and die. To George it seemed like remarkably sage and relevant advice.