A corpse was far too easy a thing to rationalize. Christianity had been doing it for two thousand years. - James Morrow

The wonders of nature, she learned, from wing of bee to sonar of bat to eyeball of baby, were not so much perfect machines as adequate contraptions. If nature bespoke a mind, it was a confused and inchoate one, a mind incapable of locating the optic nerve on the correct side of the retina, a mind unable to accomplish much of anything without resort to jerry-building and extinction.

The state flower of New Jersey is the common violet," she explained, smirking, "the state bird is the eastern goldfinch, and the state fragrance is unrefined petroleum.

It's tragic," he said.
"God killed them with His hurricane," she said.
"God had nothing to do with it."
"Actually I agree with you, though for reasons quite different from yours.