It would be easier to peel off a three-day-old Band-Aid from a hairy kneecap than to remove the patina of Baptist upbringing that coats my psyche. —Mary Ellen Snodgrass More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
What are the seven deadly sins of Christianity? Gluttony, avarice, sloth, lust . . . They are urges every man feels at least once a day. How could you set yourself up as the most powerful institution on earth? You first find out what every man feels at least once a day, establish that as a sin, and set yourself up as the only institution capable of pardoning that sin. —Anton LaVey More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Sex and religion are bordering states. They use the same vocabulary, share like ecstasies, and often serve as a substitute for one another. —Jessamyn West More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
What do atheists scream when they come? —Bill Hicks More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe? —Quentin Crisp More about this quote Tags: God religion Christianity atheism Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I was raised an atheist. Every Sunday, we went nowhere. We prayed for nothing. And all our prayers were answered. —Heidi Joyce More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
You say you have no faith? Love — and faith will come. You say you are sad? Love — and joy will come. You say you are alone? Love — and you will break out of your solitude. You say you are in hell? Love — and you will find yourself in heaven. Heaven is love. —Carlo Carretto More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds. —John Updike More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I knew couples who had been married almost forever — tending each other's illnesses, dealing with money troubles or the daughter's suicide or the grandson's drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they'd married the right person. You're just with who you're with. You've signed on with her, put in half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself, and she's become the right person, or the only person. I wish someone had told me that earlier; I'd have hung on then. —Anne Tyler More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
As I descended the stairs, the years between us seemed accumulated everywhere, filling the house, and it seemed strange to me, how love and habit blurred so thoroughly to make a life. —Sue Monk Kidd More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There is no limit to our capacity to love. We can never be satisfied by loving just one person here and another there. Our need is to love completely, universally, without any reservations — in other words, to become love itself. It can take our breath away to glimpse the vastness of such love. —Eknath Easwaran More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Does one inevitably create in one's own image the person one loves? But then love is not more than another form of imperialism. —André Brink More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
A young couple is led to imagine that marriage is a box full of goodies, . . . that they can sit down and eat out of this box all their lives, and it will never be empty. But it is empty. There will never be anything in it unless the partners put it there. And if they do not want it to be empty, they must put in a lot more than they are in the habit of taking out. But the young romantic who imagined it ought to be endlessly full of goodies institutes a lawsuit against God and the marriage partner as soon as he discovers the score of the game. He feels swindled. But he imagines the next box he buys will be full even though the first one was empty. —Willard and Marguerite Beecher More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Love is a temporary madness; it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two. —Louis de Bernières in Captain Corelli's Mandolin More about this quote Tags: love madness entwined Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I have a self-esteem problem. During sex I fantasize that I'm someone else. —Richard Lewis More about this quote Tags: self-esteem sex Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email