Parke Godwin Quotes

Got no time for games," Charity told the dog. "Hope you don't bite."
"Not at all. The hound yawned to his ears. But beware the owner. He thinks.

Sorlij tried to imagine a place less organized than this. The concept was a challenge.

Honor thy stereotypes, the authors of thy thinking, for without them, thou wouldst have to see.

Judas shrugged. “He’s taking their own fear, frustration and anger and selling it back to them with a new ribbon around it. Easy answers, easy targets: out with the Jews and blacks, down with the intellectuals, which means anyone who’s better off or disagrees with them. Slogans, marching bands and the promise of blood. How can he miss?”

The smaller the man, the larger his power fantasies.

Roy’s a fuck-up like Hitler. What’s the opposite of fail-safe? Success-safe. These turkeys have got to lose because most of their thinking is off the wall to begin with. Think about it: there’s Adolf rearranging Europe like a hyperactive housewife, shrewd as they come, and still getting his horoscope done every goddamned day, which is like seriously figuring Santa Claus into the national budget. These people are not coming from common sense; they simply can’t think big.

You haven’t changed for hundreds of years, and your sins, such as they are, have not grown in complexity. A moment of yes in a lifetime of thou shalt not. Certain punishment out of a steaming Protestant imagination.

The therapists will have a field day and we’ll probably lose hordes to schizophrenia. But cry all they want, stomp around, kick furniture, the human race will get rid of their fairy-tale notions of good, evil and the cosmos, and by God—by Me, I guess—they will grow the hell up.

Look, these clowns need a messiah because the truth of the world always goes down easier with a few miracles and a lot of blood. It’s a very old game, the rules don’t change. I’d say Stride is a flaming, fourteen-karat folk hero. Look at this crowd; you’re not talking about contented, mature people. You ever see a happy man who needed to conquer the world?

You must have been an evangelical."
"Tabernacle of the Born Again Savior," Charity owned with wistful pride. "Not that it helped a whole lot."
"Indeed." Jake sank again in his chair. "Tabernacle of the…the more shriveled the existence, the more elaborate the credentials. Virtue measured by what you wouldn't do, at least under scrutiny, and others judged for what they would and got caught at. You don't want Grace, Miss Stovall. You want to get even.

It wasn’t your usual vacation. But what’s so bad, Char? I’ve seen heaven and you’ve seen hell, and they’re just what? Common sense, funny and horrible with a lot of bullshit thrown in, just like the six o’clock news.

Judas/Jake got into the cab and and drove out of shot.
“So that’s the evilest man in the whole world ever.” Charity pondered the screen. She dunked a strawberry in champagne. “Talks mean about folks.”
“With considerable authority,” Simnel said. “A true believer at one time who would do anything to make need into truth. Now he watches the rest of them doing the same thing over and over again one way or another.”

Was that what all my praying was about? “Lord Amighty, no wonder I am damned.”
“No, Miss Stovall. Love and hell are alike in that respect; they are what you bring to them. The script is yours; only the props are furnished.”

We're here with Judas Iscariot on the fringe of the delirious demonstration for Roy Stride. Judas, can you comment on the meteoric rise of Stride and the White Paladins?"
Judas reached through the cab window and fetched his cap. "I'd say the hopeless schmucks have found the kind of government they deserve. Always do.

Your world is a sewer, Mr. Stride. One can almost absolve you for being one of its diseases.