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This puts God in a tricky situation. Ancient books relate how God unleashed all His wonders on Egypt. __He feels a little defensive now, because He doesn't have any more wonders to unleash, and He's increasingly concerned that we would see the strings if He tried. He's in the position of an amateur magician who performs for small children and suddenly has to play to skeptical adults__. All this is reflected in the steady decline of attempted miracles in the past millennia. He is too noble to rely on bluffing, and the thought of being caught and revealed as an amateur embarrasses Him. This is why God has increasingly kept a professional distance from His favorite species. As He grew more withdrawn, saints and martyrs filled the vacuum as His marketing team. He's ashamed now that He didn't put a stop to them earlier; instead, he slipped into seclusion as they generated endless chronicles.

There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. __The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time__.

...__you cannot appreciate the destination without knowing the starting point__; you cannot revel in the simplicity unless you remember the alternatives.

But eventually, just as the Technician warned, your success begins to lose its shine. __People come to discover that the end of death is the death of motivation.__ Too much life, it turns out, is the opiate of the masses. There is a noticeable decline in accomplishment. People take more naps. There's no great rush.

In theory, you could choose to watch anything: the private activities of single people in their apartments, the unfolding plans of saboteurs, the detailed progress of battlefields. But, instead, __we all watch for one thing: evidence of our residual influence in the world, the ripples left in our wake.__

The missing crowds make you lonely. You begin to complain about all the people you could be meeting. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is precisely what you chose when you were alive.

When soldiers part ways at war's end, the breakup of the platoon triggers the same emotion as the death of a person--it is the final bloodless death of the war. This same mood haunts actors on the drop of the final curtain: after months of working together, something greater than themselves has just died.

since we live in the heads of those who remember us, we lose control of our lives and become who they want us to be.

"It is not the brave who can handle the big face, it is the brave who can handle its absence."