There is so much theology and philosophy going on in this book that I don't know if I could properly sum it up or explain it. I'll leave some quotes below that I really liked from the book to outline some of the concise finer points.
Beyond those quotes, I am, as has always been the case so far, confused in that the old sci-fi writers got so much right in terms of technology, but still can't fucking figure out a female character. It's baffling considering the tech they make up and guess about is often not too far from the truth today 120-80 years after the books were written, but the living, breathing humans right in front of the authors, that they often share a home with, seem to escape their understanding.
1) "My folks tried to make a preacher of me. I guess it shows."
"It does."
"Don't scoff, girl! I woulda made a good one if I hadn't fallen into the fatal folly of reading. With a touch more confidence and a liberal helping of ignorance, I would have been a famous evangelist."
2) "Let's see your credentials, and show them to the Fair Witness and state loud and clear your name, rank, organization and pay number."
"You know who I am! I have a warrant."
"I have a warrant to part your hair with a shotgun unless you do things legally and in order. I don't know who you are! You look like a stuffed shirt I saw over the telephone. But I don't identify you. You must identify yourself in specified fashion World Code paragraph 1602 part 2 before you may serve a warrant. And that goes for those other apes too. And that pithican parasite piloting for you."
"They are police officers acting under my orders."
"I don't know that they are. You might have hired those ill-fitting clown suits at a costumers. The letter of the law, sir. You've come barging into my castle. You say you are a police officer and you allege that you have a warrant for this intrusion. But I say you are trespassers until you prove otherwise, which invokes my sovereign right to use force to eject you which I shall start to do in about 3 seconds."
"I wouldn't advise it."
"Why are you to advise? If I am hurt in attempting to do this, my right, your action becomes constructive assault with a deadly weapon if the things those mules are toting are guns, as they appear to be. Civil and criminal, both! Why, my man, I'll have your hide for a door mat."
3) "Quit squirming your carcass at him, you cheap hussy!"
4) "God wants us to be happy. He filled the world with things to make us happy. Would God let grape juice turn to wine if he didn't want us to drink and be joyful? He could let it stay grape juice, or turn it into vinegar that no one could get a giggle out of. Ain't that true? Of course, that don't mean you should get roaring drunk and neglect your wife and beat your kids. He gave us good things to use, not abuse... And it make you want to dance and give thanks to the Lord for his goodness, why not? God made alcohol and God made feet. He made them so you could put them together and be happy... And that ain't all. If God didn't want women to be looked at, he woulda made them ugly. That's reasonable, isn't it? God isn't a cheat. He set up the game himself. He wouldn't rig it so the marks can't win like a flat-joint wheel . . . He wouldn't send anybody to Hell for loosing in a crooked game. Alright! God wants us to be happy, and he told us how: Love one another! Love a snake if the poor thing needs love! Love thy neighbor! And the back of your hand only to Satan's corruptors who only want to lead you away from the appointed way and down into the pit. And by love, he didn't mean namby-pamby old maid love that's scared to look up from the hymn book for fear of seeing a temptation of the flesh. If God hated flesh, why did he make so much of it? God is no sissy. He made the Grand Canyon and comets coursing through the sky and cyclones and stallions and earthquakes. Can a God who can do all that turn around and practically wet his pants just because some little Sheela leans over a might and a man catches the sight of a tit? You know better, hon, and so do I. When God told us to love, he wasn't holding out a card on us, he meant it! . . . Of course, that don't mean to peddle it any more than a bottle of rye means I gotta get fighting drunk and clobber a cop. You can't sell love, and you can't buy happiness. No price tags on either. And if you think there is, the way to Hell lies open. But if you give with an open heart and receive what God has an unlimited supply of, the devil can't touch you."
5) "Jealousy is a disease. Love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one with the other, or assumes the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. In fact, they are almost incompatible. One emotion hardly leaves room for the other. Both at once can produce unbearable turmoil."
