Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman Quotes

“...in divinity opposites are always reconciled.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“Are you an atheist?"
"Oh no, I honor all the gods."
"And how many belong to that all?"
"Countless. And one."
"How meaningless!"
"'Oliness, let me hear you count to one."
"One."
"Point at that one."
Brownpony stirred restlessly. Finally he tapped his index finger against his temple.
Wooshin laughed quietly. "Wrong. You had to think about it too long. And you didn't count to one. You counted from one and stopped. The one is countless.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“The monk's ultimate goal is direct union with the Godhead. But to aim at that goal is to miss it altogether. His task is to rid himself of ego so that consciousness, once its usual discordant mental content is dumped out of it through ritual prayer and meditation, may experience nonself as a living formlessness and emptiness into which God may come, if it please Him to come.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“One should be embarrassed to speak of God in the third person.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“Cling to him? Nimmy, Jesus came to be sacrificed for our sins. We offer him, immolated, on the altar. And still, you want to cling to him?"...
"To sacrifice Jesus is to give him up, of course."
The monk started. "But I gave up everything for Jesus!"
"Oh, did you! Except Jesus, perhaps, good simpleton?"
"If I give up Jesus, I will have nothing at all!"
'Well, that might be perfect poverty, but for one thing: that nothing — you should get rid of that too, Nimmy."...

"Nimmy, the only hard thing about following Christ is that you must throw away all values, even the value you place on following Christ. And to throw them away doesn't mean sell them, or sell them out. To be truly poor in spirit, discard your loves and your hates, your good and bad taste, your preferences. Your wish to be, or not be, a monk of Christ. Get rid of it. You can't even see the path, if you care where it goes. Free from values, you can see it plain as day. But if you have even one little wish, a wish to be sinless, or a wish to change your dirty clothes, the path vanishes. Did you ever think that maybe the cangue and chains you wear are your own precious values, Nimmy? Your vocation or lack of it? Good and evil? Ugliness and beauty? Pain and pleasure? These are values, and these are heavy weights. They make you stop and consider, and that's when you lose the way of the Lord."...

"The Devil!" the monk said softly.
If Specklebird heard it as an accusation, he ignored it. "Him? Throw him away, dump him in the slit trench with the excrement, throw quicklime on him."
"Jesus!"
"Him too, oh yes, into the trench with that fucker! If he makes you rich.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“The room had apparently been used as a prison by the Texarki before; the walls were filled with intricate but illiterate scratchings—faces, smiles and frowns, a sun, various interpretations of the male and female body. The wall looked to Blacktooth like the surface of a monk's brain, the scratchings on the soul that a man learns to live with and, usually, hopefully, eventually, to ignore.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“M'Lord, I know from history that once upon a time in a much earlier Church, a vocation to the priesthood meant a call from the bishop, not necessarily a call from God. And I heard the Bishop of Rome himself call you to be that which you have now become by ordination and consecration.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman

“It never was any better, it never will be any better. It will only be richer or poorer, sadder but not wiser, until the very last day.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman