William Matteus Fonn

“For her er noe annet som er merkelig men sant: I voksenlivets daglige skyttergraver finnes det ikke noe slikt som ateisme. Det finnes ikke noe slikt som å ikke tilbe. Alle tilber noe. Det eneste valget vi har er om hva vi skal tilbe. Og den gode grunnen til å kanskje velge en slags gud eller åndelig ting å tilbe [...] er at stort sett alt annet du kan tilbe vil ete deg levende. Hvis du tilber penger og ting, hvis det er der du finner virkelig mening i livet, vil du aldri få nok, aldri føle at du har nok. Det er sant. Tilbe kroppen din og din egen skjønnhet og seksuelle tiltrekningskraft, og du kommer alltid til å føle deg stygg. Og når tiden og alderen begynner å vise seg vil du dø en million ganger før de endelig sørger over deg.”
― David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”
― David Foster Wallace , This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
― G.K. Chesterton