Dreams and shadows Quotes

“...the universe is energy. All of it. Everything is energy that can be altered simply by willing it to be altered. It's as if we are God's waking dream, each gifted with a small piece of his consciousness; the beauty of that arrangement is that we create the dream for him. If you can understand that, if you can wrap your mind around it, then you can conjure up anything you want from out of the ether. Provided there is material enough to do it.”

“The sum of a man isn't the things he's done, it is the world he leaves behind.”

“The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.”

“When shall I be past these soul-tormenting fears, and cares, and griefs, and passions? When shall I be out of this frail, this corruptible, ruinous body; this soul-contradicting, insnaring, deceiving flesh? When shall I be out of this vain and vexatious world, whose pleasures are mere deluding dreams and shadowsl whose miseries are real, numerous, and uncessant? How long shall I see the church of Christ lie trodden under the feet of persecutors ; or else, as a ship in the hands of foolish guides, though the supreme Maker doth moderate all for the best? (642-3)”

“Monsters are very real. But they're not just creatures. Monsters are everywhere. They're people. They're nightmares...They are the things that we harbor within ourselves. If you remember one thing, even above remembering me, remember that there is not a monster dreamt that hasn't walked once within the soul of a man.”

“Heaven has no room for the self-righteous.”

“It was the literary equivalent of a brown paper bag.”

“The universe was a vast expanse, far greater than he could ever conceive, and he had seen but a fraction of an inch of it.”

“All the light had fallen away from the world, with only the fog illuminated now. Even the stars struggled against the black, managing only the slightest pinpricks of twinkles through a gloom that was both everywhere and nowhere at once. It wasn't the dark of night; it was the tenebrous shadow of bad omens.”