Gaiman and Pratchett on Belief

These quotes are from the novel Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

"Pah!" said Shadwell.... "Churches? What good did they ever do? They'm just as bad. Same line o' business, nearly. You can't trust them to stamp out the Evil One 'cos if they did they'd be out o' that line o' business. If yer goin' up against a tiger, ye don't want fellow travellers whose idea of huntin' is tae throw meat at it. Nay, lad. It's up to us. Against the darkness."


"Newton Pulsifer had never had a cause in his life. Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a Supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that."