"...God being omnipotent is therefore everywhere at once in what is called time; all slaughter of X (Jews) is therefore in his awareness simultaneously with the birth of him whose death the slaughter avenges...

...Might it even be possible that God, in his Hebrew aspect writing from right to left, writes first the slaughter of X and later the crucifixion for which they are slaughtered? If we look at it in that way we might see the slaughter as cause and crucifixion as effect...

The sin of the slaughter being heavy on the sinners, there comes a redeemer to offer his innocence for their guilt, the one of the many."

Pilgermann by Russell Hoban

"Whole humankind exists there can only be the rotation of God's impossible requirements and humankind's repeated failures. Indeed, what is God but an impossible requirement? Any possible requirement would not be God".

"In every configuration of time and circumstance there is the she-camel of the matter to be discerned by those whose attention is strong and consonant. All of us dwell in the stone and when the stone brings forth a she-camel we must take notice of it and respond appropriately."

I keep returning to this book whenever I'm in low spirits. There's something deeply enchanting and enigmatic about Hoban's writing. Is magical Boschian realism a thing?

"Sometimes I manifest myself as an owl painted by Bosch and in this way I fly through the skies of his paintings and observe what is happening."