In her silence, Winter’s eye flicked to the gold cross gleaming on her blouse. He began to compose a speech in his head. In the speech, he told Molly Byrne that her husband had had a vision, a drugged vision in the jungles of Brazil. He had seen a god who was both the mind of the universe and somehow his own mind at the same time. In his speech, Winter confessed to her that he did not know anything about God. He did not even know whether or not God existed. But he knew this: if God did exist, He might be many things, but He was not Gerald Byrne. And Gerald Byrne was not God.

He did not make the speech out loud. He didn’t have the nerve.

A Strange Habit of Mind, by Andrew Klavan, p. 205