Each of them was intimately aware of the procedure for electing a pope—not only of the antiquated mechanisms, of course, but of the politicking, pres… - Dan Simmons

To see and feel one’s beloved naked for the first time is one of life’s pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes.

I realized that night the import and the terrible difficulty in the task ahead of me—in keeping this child safe from the sharp edges of a strange and indifferent universe.
I think that is was on this alien and storm-tossed night that I first understood what it might be like to be a parent.

I don’t think that I want to make any wager if it means dealing with a Church that has grown so corrupt that it makes obedience and submission the price of its saving the life of someone’s child.