Quotes from William Peter Blatty

But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn't otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans.

Your thoughts are too dull to entertain.

The child was slender as fleeting hope.

All I know is that things seem to happen. And, my dear, there are lunatic asylums all over the world filled with people who dabbled in the occult.

Good writing is rhythm.

Henri Bergson thought the principal function of the brain was to filter out most of reality so that we could focus on the tasks of earthly life," he said. "When the filter is weakened by a powerful drug, what we see is not delusion but the truth.

Her shoes were comfortable. They reflected her hope for the evening.

More rooted in logic was the silence of God. In the world there was evil and much of it resulted from doubt, from an honest confusion among men of good will. Would a reasonable God refuse to end it? Not finally reveal Himself? Not speak? "Lord, give us a sign…" The raising of Lazarus was dim in the distant past. No one now living had heard his laughter. And so why not a sign?

In our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. —Aeschylus

I think the dead should shut up unless there's something to say

Something else," he told Atkins. He stood with his nose an inch away from the sergeant's, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his coat. "What does Lucifer mean?" "Light Bearer." "And what is the stuff of the universe?" "Energy." "What is energy's commonest form?" "Light." "I know." And with that, the detective walked away, listing slowly through the squad room and down the stairs. He didn't come back.

at last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion. No. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others; and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other.

And I think—I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love: of accepting the possibility that God could ever love us.

Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter?

The Kurd stood waiting like an ancient debt.

At the edge of his dreams, there was often a sound like the faint, distant cry of someone in distress, and for minutes after waking, he would feel the anxiety of some duty unfulfilled.

she advised me to keep my fingers away from her goddamned cunt.

But if all of the evil in the world makes you think that there might be a devil, Chris, how do you account for all the good?

In our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom

They Said, "what sign can you give us to see, so that we may believe you?" - John 6: 30 - 31 You do not believe although you have seen... - John 6: 36 - 37

Ah, well … at last I realized that God would never ask of me that which I know to be psychologically impossible; that the love which He asked was in my will and not meant to be felt as emotion. No. Not at all. He was asking that I act with love; that I do unto others; and that I should do it unto those who repelled me, I believe, was a greater act of love than any other.

eternity, where time does not exist and so the future and the past are both the present.

And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love: of accepting the possibility that God could ever love us.

Peace I leave you. My peace I give you.