Quotes about God
page 36

“Maybe God created the desert so that man could appreciate the date trees”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Tree

“we know God is dead, they've told us, but listening to you I wasn't sure.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Dead

“In this life, no matter what anyone promises you, what allegiances of love or fealty they swear or what gods they pray to, you will never have more than what you have at this moment.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Love, Life

“I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Dependency

“When the solution is simple, God is answering.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“We're all born lost, aren't we? We're all born separated from God - over and over life makes sure to inform us of this - and yet we're all real: we have names, we have lives. We mean something. We must.”

Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!

Source: Hey Nostradamus!

Life

“A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

“Say you’ll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won’t go. I’ll stay around here and play a guitar under your window every night and sing at the top of my voice and compromise you, so you’ll have to marry me to save your reputation.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Singing, Night

“Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!"”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

and all was light.
Epitaph intended for Sir Isaac Newton.

Law, Nature, Light, Night

“I thank God for my handicaps. For through them, I have found myself, my work and my God.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

“At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

“On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

“Isaiah rolled his eyes. "Good God. What a noble lot. You're all Spartacus, aren't you?”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

“Someone who is determinedly trying to show God how good he or she is is likely to become an insufferable prig.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

Source: After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters

“I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant you to be when He thought of you first.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Beauty, Help

“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Fools

“It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60).”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor

Way, Understanding, Thinking

“I imagined loading the God of the Sea into a taxi and taking him to the Upper East Side.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Imagination, Sea

“And I thank God let me gain understanding enough to know love can't be halted just cause some peoples moan and groan. P.238”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

Love, People, Understanding

“In all the institutions I try to be present and accountable for all I do and leave undone. I know that eventually I shall have to be present and accountable n the presence of God. I do not wish to be found wanting.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

“A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures…”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

“i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

65 - This poem was used by Eric Whitacre for an a capella SATB chorus titled "i thank you God".
XAIPE (1950)

Dreams, Nature, Tree

“Please, God, send me something to adore.”

Michael Cunningham book By Nightfall

Source: By Nightfall

“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 62
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

“My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Hate, Waiting, Sun, Heart

“Oh my God, I thought. I’m rooming with the Sydney Sage of re-education.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

Education

“Gods suppressed become devils, and often it is these devils whom we first encounter when we turn inward.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

“What baffles me is the comfort people find in the idea that somebody dealt this mess. Blind and meaningless chance seems to me so much more congenial - or at least less horrible. Prove to me that there is a God and I will really begin to despair.”

Peter de Vries (1910–1993) American editor and novelist

Source: The Blood of the Lamb

People, Idea, Chance, Despair

“Anyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego.”

Michael Crichton book Next

Source: Next

“Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

Source: Spiritual Perspectives And Human Facts

Nature, Thinking, Forgetting

“I shouldn't have done that," I said.

That was when I kissed him again.

May God forgive me for this and all these things I've done.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: All These Things I've Done

Forgiveness, Kiss

“But she stepped forward and placed a finger to his lips and there it was before him. The greatest prayer to the gods he could muster with a heart so broken.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

Heart

“How seven days had passed since she had disappeared from existence.
That it would take the eyes of the gods to find her.
Or the heart of the Lumateran exile.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Heart

“The knowledge of the cross brings a conflict of interest between God who has become man and man who wishes to become God.”

Jürgen Moltmann (1926) German Reformed theologian

Source: The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology

Knowledge

“For God's sake, let's take the word 'possess' and put a brick round its neck and drown it… We can't possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Busman's Honeymoon

Source: Busman's Honeymoon

“God, I needed you," he murmured. "I can't even tell you how many times I thought about this. The funny thing is, I don't need you any less now. I think I need you more."
~Shane~”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Carpe Corpus

Thinking, Time

“For God's sake, Marks, do you think anyone really wants a glance at those dried-up matchsticks you call legs?”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Seduce Me at Sunrise

Thinking

“I haven't got any special religion this morning. My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don't need any other god.”

Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989) English novelist

Religion

“Dear God, please let him have heard me. Please.
Please.
If you're up there.
Somewhere.”

Malorie Blackman Noughts & Crosses

Source: Noughts & Crosses

“Is he nuts?"
"I think the expression used to be 'touched by God'."
"So that would be a yes.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

Thinking

“Change
is the one unavoidable,
irresistible,
ongoing reality of the universe.
To us,
that makes it the most powerful reality,
and just another word for
God.

Earthseed: The Books of the Living
Lauren Oya Olamina”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

Books, Reality, Universe, Change

“I have become convinced that God thoroughly enjoys fixing and saving things that are broken. That means that no matter how hurt and defeated you feel, no matter how badly you have been damaged, God can repair you. God can give anyone a second chance.”

Melody Carlson (1956) American writer

Source: Damaged: A Violated Trust

Feeling, Chance, Hurt

“Look to your heart
that flutters in and out like a moth.
God is not indifferent to your need.
You have a thousand prayers
but God has one.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Heart, Indifference

“No heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Dreams, Search, Suffering, Heart

“In silence the three of them looked at the sunset and thought about God.”

Maud Hart Lovelace book Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Source: Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Silence

“Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, "God told me…" As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

World, Way

“The search for God's presence was much of a mystery as God himself, and what was God if not a mystery?”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

“They say that God is everywhere and yet we always think of him as somewhat of a recluse.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Thinking

“I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Ich glaube an Spinozas Gott, der sich in der gesetzlichen Harmonie des Seienden offenbart, nicht an einen Gott, der sich mit Schicksalen und Handlungen der Menschen abgibt. <br class="br">24 April 1929 in response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid 50 words." Einstein replied in only 27 (German) words. The New York Times 25 April 1929 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10B1EFC3E54167A93C7AB178FD85F4D8285F9 <br class="br">Similarly, in a letter to Maurice Solovine, he wrote: "I can understand your aversion to the use of the term 'religion' to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza... I have not found a better expression than 'religious' for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason." <br class="br">As quoted in Einstein : Science and Religion http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/spinoza.html by Arnold V. Lesikar <br class="br">1920s

Fate, World, Law

“It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Sleep

“There is no God any more divine than Yourself.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives

Love

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. - Hitchens 3:16”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Love, World

“Don't just learn from God's Word, but believe it will change your life.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Life, Learning, Change

“The story of her life. God gave you everything just to take it away. Just so you knew exactly what you were missing.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

Life

“They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of 'em's got a little piece of land in his head. An' never a God damn one of 'em ever gets it.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men

“You try spending six months sitting at somebody's bedside, waiting for them to die and then tell me that the happy-ending love story isn't one of God's good gifts.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Ain't She Sweet

Love, Happiness, Waiting

“Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

L'homme est bien insensé. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des Dieux à douzaines.
Book II, Ch. 12
Essais (1595), Book II
Source: The Complete Essays