God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Now Adam slouched alone along the dusty lane. It was a good slouch. Adam had a way of slouching along that offended all right-thinking people. It wasn't that he just allowed his body to droop. He could slouch with inflections, and now the set of his shoulders reflected the hurt and bewilderment of those unjustly thwarted in their selfless desire to help their fellow men.

People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.

Adam looked at Them. They were his kind of people, too.You just had to decide who your friends really were.