William Gaddis

He took off his hat and shook it (having hurried home as though his own coronation were waiting), and moved now with the slow deliberation of lonely people who have time for every meager requirement of their lives.

Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.

Get a black suit and just freeload, problem it’s too God damned late now even to be any of the things I never wanted to be.

He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correctly, regarded as “rank presumption”.

I mean why should somebody go steal and break the law to get all they can when there’s always some law where you can be legal and get it all anyway!

The painters could be identified by dirty fingernails; the writers by conversation in labored monosyllables and aggressive vulgarities which disguised their minds.

God cannot alter the past, but historians can.

Why is the tao so valuable? Because it is everywhere, and everyone can use it. This is why those who seek will find.

I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.

Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

In a mind clear as still water, even the waves, breaking, are reflecting its light.

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.

Outside the kingdom of the Lord there is no nation which is greater than any other. God and history will remember your judgment.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

I love learning about different religions, and discovering the different ways to worship, and to love the greatness and the higher being that surrounds us all. I definitely believe in a bigger presence, and I really respect all religions; at their core they all teach the same message – community and kindness and looking out for each other.

The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.

You’ve got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body’s sermon on how to behave.

It is a naked city. Faith is not pampered, nor hope encouraged; there is no place to lay one’s exhaustion: but instead pinnacles skewer it undisguised against vacancy.