So I really don't care what [God's] got to say about anything, and if he came clumping down from heaven right now in a big pair of hobnail boots, waving the book of Judges in my face, I'd simply tell him what I tell every other evangelising prick I meet: "No thanks. I'm not interested in your phony salvation. I'd prefer damnation. Now piss off, I've got some sinning to do."

I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.

I would rather lose all my lands and a hundred lives than be king over heretics.

Some people would rather drown our domes in blood than learn anything from history. Or learn anything at all.

I would rather go to Heaven doubting all the way than be lost through self-confidence.

I would rather be defeated than make capital out of my religion.

I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.

I […] thoroughly detest [novels that] fasten on to some historical figure, offering me bogus biography, an unpleasant mixture of fact and fiction.

Holy books are an insult to a God with good intentions.

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.

Maybe the Good Friday story is about how God would rather die than be in our sin-accounting business anymore.