Lapham’s Quarterly

To blow and to swallow at the same time is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here and also there.

God is alive. Magic is afoot.

One thing alone not even God can do: to make undone whatever has been done.

In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients.

There are times when reality becomes too complex for oral communication. But legend gives it a form by which it pervades the whole world.

The fear of the Lord is true wisdom, and he who hath it not can in no way penetrate the true secrets of magic.

A miracle entails a degree of irrationality—not because it shocks reason, but because it makes no appeal to it.

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.

The believer in magic and miracles reflects on how to impose a law on nature—and, in brief, the religious cult is the outcome of this reflection.

There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching toward him and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.