And slander's what it is; you made this world, and it's lovely, every inch of it. When I think of the things I've loved I find myself choking with happiness, or maybe sorrow, I don't know; and every one of them has been something in this world that you made. If anyone can smell frying fish on an evening by the lake, or feel a cool breeze on a hot day, or see a little animal trying to run around and tumbling over and getting up again, or kiss a pair of soft and willing lips, if anyone can feel those things and still maintain they're nothing but crude imperfect copies of something much better in another world, they are slandering you, Lord, as surely as words mean anything at all.


//Philip Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ