Dan Brown — Quotes from Author's Books

There is only one way to triumph over death, and that is by making our lives masterpieces.

Since the beginning of religious history, our species has been caught in a never-ending cross fire—atheists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, the faithful of all religions—and the only thing that unites us all is our deep longing for peace.

The early Greeks had to look back centuries to study ancient culture, but we need look back only a single generation to find those who lived without the technologies we take for granted today. The timeline of human development is compressing; the space that separates ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ is shrinking to nothing at all.

When we forgive evil in the world, we are giving evil permission to grow and spread. When we respond to an act of war with an act of mercy, we are encouraging our enemies to commit further acts of violence.

Today we face the darkest evils in the world with nothing more than our ability to forgive, to love, and to be compassionate. And so we allow—no, we encourage—the evil to grow. In response to repeated crimes against us, we delicately voice our concerns in politically correct language, reminding each other that an evil person is evil only because of his difficult childhood, or his impoverished life, or his having suffered crimes against his own loved ones—and so his hatred is not his own fault. I say, enough! Evil is evil! We have all struggled in life!

Professor, he said with a chuckle, Edmond Kirsch is not the first atheist in history to proclaim that ‘God is dead,’ nor will he be the last. Whatever it is that Mr. Kirsch has discovered, it will no doubt be debated on all sides. Since the beginning of time, the human intellect has always evolved, and it is not my role to impede that development. From my perspective, however, there has never been an intellectual advancement that has not included God.

Since the beginning of time, world religions have been humanity’s most important organizing principle, a road map for civilized society, and our original source of ethics and morality.