All the questions had been reduced to doctrine; all the doctrine had been simplified to catechism; all the catechism had been learned long ago. - Sheri S. Tepper

As good Catholic children, our destiny was to be guilty over sex, to have lots of babies, and to partake of the sacraments sufficiently often to assure that we'd go to heaven when we died."
"Right," said Bertran. "And in the fundamentalist church down the block, they learned their destiny was to be guilty over sex, to worship the flag (in defiance of the first and second commandments), and to be born again sufficiently often to assure they'd go to heaven when they died, though I'm not sure whether it was the same heaven or not. In fact, the only real difference between us and them was whether we ranked sperm or the flag slightly ahead of god.

The use of destructive, noisy machinery for recreational purposes must become anathema to humans, as unthinkable as eating one’s young.

“Magic!” cried the demon. “Miracle! What difference between the two?”
“There is no difference at all,” said Galenor. “Except that people allow themselves to believe an event if it’s called a miracle while disdaining the same event if it’s called magic. Or vice versa.