It's more than a one-act play

The Christian world and the sciences alike believe that it is all just a one-act play. The Christians say it all began with the creation of Adam--there was nothing before; and it will end hereafter with the beatific vision, when we just look at the Lord or sing hymns forever. It came out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), and it goes, as St. Jerome says, "back into the nothing, from which it came." Science says it ends here. Wherever it began, it ends here. In either case, it ends in a static heaven. But we say, "No, no, no." The play goes on forever, but in distinct episodes. Let us not mistake the episodes for the play, saying that is all there is. ("Funeral Address", Approaching Zion)

What do we do now?

We're told there was no contention among them [in 4 Nephi]. Is there any wonder about that? There's no contention. What, no plot in the play? We're not going to have any fun without contention. With us, after the buildup, after the climax, after the denouement, they ride into the sunset or they live happily every after. The play must end there, because the author or the playwright has nowhere to go. After all the problems, after all the dirty work, after all the dangers have been passed, then we say, "The cloudless skies are all serene. Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen." They have no place to go, so the author has nothing to do but end the play. But that's where the play should begin. What kind of fun are they going to have after that if they've lost all the excitement, if it's all passed away? This, as Spangler says, is the ultimate disaster to civilization. After all our problems are solved, then we have nothing to do but collapse into a pile of ashes. We're not going anywhere. Problemlosigkeit is the absence of problems. We've got to have an answer here. ("Lecture 103: 4 Nephi 1", Teachings of the Book of Mormon: Semester 4)

Certain eternal things

There are certain things of which we never tire, with which we never become bored. Those are the things of eternity. Yet strangely enough it is these which we easily dismiss and neglect as if they were highly expendable. ("Goods of First and Second Intent", Approaching Zion)

Science without religion

Science without religion, like philosophy without religion, has nothing to feed on. . . It is my contention that any branch of human thought without religion soon withers and dies of anemia. ("Science Fiction and the Gospel", Temple and Cosmos)

That which is of the most importance

There is no free lunch, we say; you get yourself financially fixed, and then you might consider some of the other things. Of course acquisition soon becomes the measure of existence; we become hooked on the idea of "success" and everything goes into it. Yet once you have "succeeded," what else is there? Only retirement. I know of a number of men who looked forward to retirement, only to find when they had reached it that it was too late for the things they knew in their heart all along were the most important. Like the young man with a fine singing voice who worked in a boiler factory to get enough money for music lessons. By the time he had enough, he was stone deaf. ("Goods of First and Second Intent", Approaching Zion)

Joseph Smith offered a plot

Religion has no plot. Science has no plot. This means that Joseph Smith is the only entry. He, at least, has given us a picture. . . Joseph Smith gave the world something that nobody else could. That is why I say that Joseph Smith, with nothing going for him and everything going against him, simply could not lose. He told us what the play is all about. If you can come up with a better story than his, more power to you, but up until now no one else has had any story at all to place before us. If only for that reason, I believe, the Prophet's story deserves a hearing. ("Before Adam")