Kate Coyle Quotes

Bless him”—the Messiah raises a shiny copy of the New Apocalypse Edition of the Book of Frick—“for leaving us this miraculous book, this new edition of his Holy Word, available for only nineteen ninety-nine at Church of America megastores worldwide.

If I ever had patience for believers who wanted to convince me of my own wickedness, I’ve officially run out of it.

What Harp doesn’t understand is that I like my parents—current hiccups in sanity not withstanding.

That's part of the prophecy of the Rapture, right? The dead will rise and crash our parties?"
He laughs. "Do you really think that's a priority, for the reanimated corpses?"
"Absolutely," I say. "No French onion dip in purgatory.

(“For God saw that Americans were industrious and made money in His name, and he saw that it was good”). It’s one of the many parts of the Book of Frick that makes you wonder whether or not Frick was just straight-up on ’shrooms when he was writing it.

I mean, these people really believe what they believe."
"But what they believe is so absurd.

I’m starting to understand how little purchase the truth actually affords us in this world.

This whole country," says my grandmother evenly, "supports a culture of ignorance and anti-intellectualism which posits that not understanding a phenomenon is just as valid as understanding one, and frankly I'm sick of it.

Even now I think I could only list for him the various things I don’t believe in. But still I wish I could. Because I’m starting to narrow it down. I don’t believe in hate. I don’t believe in money. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe it’s too late.

Everyone seems absurdly rich and very drunk. I notice with annoyance that there’s no adherence to modesty here: I see short skirts and plenty of cleavage, bare necks adorned by jewels. I guess if you have enough money, the Church will overlook a selection of your sins.

Behind him shines the blinking neon of a casino:

I'm Harp," my best friend says, business-like. "This is Viv. Personally, I think you guys would make really cute babies together.

I will never understand why Believers cling to this kind of language, this relentless empty optimism, plus all! those! exclamation! points!

It’s funny now to think that we were ever confused by extreme action taken in the name of God.

How many simple pleasures I denied myself, because I thought that’s what goodness was. How stupid that it took me until the end of the world to realize it was something else entirely.