“I don’t really believe but I sense something important is going on.” (>>)

First hint that the woman in charge of the property management firm at your building might be a passive-aggressive misandrist: You can’t tell if the new wallpaper in the men’s bathroom is tan or pink.

“[Human] history is largely a record of crime, war, disease, and terror, with just sufficient happiness interposed to give them, while it lasts, an agonised apprehension of losing it, and, when it is lost, the poignant misery of remembering.” (>>)

“[T]he great privilege of habeas corpus, and of trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the State… -The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers-is, in the highest degree, odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian governments… Extraordinary powers assumed by the Executive with the consent of Parliament in emergencies should be yielded up, when and as, the emergency declines… This is really the test of civilization. (>>)

“I was raised, as a Christian, on inviting Jesus into your heart and giving over your life to him, and he will make you whole again, undo your pain, and shield and protect you from real hardship and trouble. Nobody ever expressed it quite as bluntly or as superficially as that, but that was the message I heard anyway. Jesus will make everything all better. You won’t have to be afraid of life anymore…

“The more I have thought about Jesus in his own context, and tried to understand him as his disciples would have, as his contemporaries would have, the more disconnected he has become from the Christ of my Christian youth. The more sense Jesus made as a 1st century Jew, the less plausible he became as a timeless big brother intent on undoing the litany of errors I am so gifted at making…

“I realised that there really wasn’t a place for my Casper-the-friendly-second-person-of-the-Trinity-messiah any more. He didn’t exist, he wasn’t real.” (>>)

“I want to be loved by someone, even if it’s a false love. I want someone to make me feel good, to believe in me. And that night I wanted this woman. I wanted her physically and emotionally. I wanted her to help me deny who I really was. I wanted her to take away the sadness. I wanted her to be my savior…

“[But] I don’t know if I will get emotionally entangled with [her] only to be shoved down into the dirt, more bruised than I was before…

“So […] I invite companionship and seek community, need community–But all I really have is God. People are too much like… people; they’re too much like me. I need someone who loves in ways I never could. I need God.

“But, like Jesus, I wrestle with God. ‘Take this cup from me. There must be another way.’ And then I learn that there isn’t another way. I learn that God is unreasonable. In fact, he always has been. Forgiveness is unreasonable. Jesus dying on a cross is unreasonable…” (>>)

“What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?” (>>)

“In the last few years, Hardee’s, Burger King and Wendy’s all have introduced 1,000-calorie-plus sandwiches stuffed with 12 ounces of beef — the amount of meat recommended for two days for most adults. In addition, Hardee’s just rolled out a new Country Breakfast Burrito, a tortilla wrap stuffed with two egg omelets, sausage, bacon, ham, cheddar cheese, hash browns and gravy. The burrito contains 920 calories and 60 grams of fat, almost all the fat an adult needs in a single day.” (>>)

“We’ve gone too far, we’ve done too much. We have to quit it.”
“Just one more kiss, just one more touch. Please, ten more minutes.” (>>) [MP3]

“At several points when Matthew ‘quotes’ the Old Testament I have gone back and read what he quoted and thought, ‘Did all tax collectors smoke weed in the first century, or was it just Matthew?’ ” (>>)

“You can make your own definition of human rights and say, ‘We don’t violate them’ and you can make you own definition of torture and say, ‘We don’t…’ “

“So, is the President lying?”

“[…] Yes.” (>>)

“Your heart won’t heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures” (>>)

“Every time I spend time with them in the RV, I am reminded of how very few material possessions we need to be happy. They don’t have rooms and rooms full of STUFF and THINGS that need dusting and organizing. They don’t have separate closets overflowing with clothes they don’t wear. They don’t feel compelled to save items they don’t want because someone gave it as a gift, or because it meant something to them when they were ten. They’ve pared down to the essentials, and every time they buy something new they have to get rid of something old. It’s a forced form of simple living!” (>>)

“I think that we spend too much of our lives insulating ourselves from feeling anything. Which means that feeling something usually strikes us as extremely uncomfortable.” (>>)

“i don’t like prayer.” (>>)

“Stand in the light. Stand in the light. Stand in the light.” (>>) [MP3]

magic.

“Lip gloss = shiny, rose-tinted love.” (>>)

“Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?” (>>)