Frederick Buechner: Quotes about life

Frederick Buechner is Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian. Explore interesting quotes on life.
Frederick Buechner: 134 quotes13 likes

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Frederick Buechner

Source: Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)

“The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.”

Frederick Buechner

Source: The Hungering Dark

“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.”

Frederick Buechner

Source: The Alphabet of Grace (1970)

“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.”

Frederick Buechner

“And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him the only life?”

Frederick Buechner

Source: The Magnificent Defeat (1966)

“What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”

Frederick Buechner book Godric

Godric (1980)

“Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you... remember that the lives of others are not your business. They are their business. They are God’s business... even your own life is not your business. It also is God’s business. Leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought... unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy... What deadens us most to God’s presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought. I suspect that there is nothing more crucial to true spiritual comfort... than being able from time to time to stop that chatter...”

Frederick Buechner

Telling Secrets (1991)

“If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last Supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is no such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully — the life you save may be your own — and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law and order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, Get and Jesus says, Give. In terms of the world's sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.”

Frederick Buechner

Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner (1992)