“If I had been on the hills of Bethlehem in the year one, I do not think I should have heard angels singing because I do not hear them now, & there is no reason to suppose that they have stopped.”

— Northrop Frye

Source: "Quotes", Notebooks and Lectures on the Bible and Other Religious Texts (2003), p. 74

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If I had been on the hills of Bethlehem in the year one, I do not think I should have heard angels singing because I do…" by Northrop Frye?

Northrop Frye 137

Canadian literary critic and literary theorist 1912–1991

Related quotes

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Source: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Context: I grow old … I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

“"I know you don't have to help us out-it's a favor-"
"Stop. I don't do favors, Alec. I do things for you because-- well, why do you think I do them?”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Alec and Magnus, pg. 406
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“I would love to be able to be the one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians. I would love that, that would be such a great achievement. Because nobody's been able to do it. … I've had a lot of, actually, great Israeli businesspeople tell me, you can't do that, it's impossible. I disagree, I think you can make peace. I think people are tired now of being shot, killed. At some point, when do they come? I think we can do that. I have reason to believe I can do that.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, November, New York Times Interview (November 23, 2016)

“I think you should be a child for as long as you can. I have been successful for 74 years being able to do that.”

Bob Newhart (1929) American stand-up comedian and actor

“That's something that I regret – that I allowed them to browbeat me into doing an album every year. Because when I took time out to have children I got behind in my albums. One year I had to do three in a row. The same year! Just to keep up with my contract with them. What a pile of bullshit that is.”

Anne Murray (1945) Canadian singer

Regarding the issue between her recording contract and her family life
The Globe and Mail interview (2017)

“The way I really think is more like this "I am a scientist. I think the way to the truth is by investigation. I suspect that telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis and life after death do not exist because I have been looking in vain for them for 25 years. I have been wrong lots of times before and am not afraid of it."”

Susan Blackmore (1951) British writer and academic

Dr. Susan Blackmore http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Kurtz.htm

“I respect churches because of the sacredness that's been put on them over the years by people who do believe. But I think a lot of bad things have happened in the name of the church and in the name of Christ.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 226
Context: I don't need to go to church. I respect churches because of the sacredness that's been put on them over the years by people who do believe. But I think a lot of bad things have happened in the name of the church and in the name of Christ. Therefore I shy away from church, and as Donovan once said, "I go to my own church in my own temple once a day." And I think people who need a church should go. And the others who know the church is in your own head should visit that temple because that's where the source is. We're all God. Christ said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." And the Indians say that and the Zen people say that. We're all God. I'm not a god or the God, but we're all God and we're all potentially divine — and potentially evil. We all have everything within us and the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh and within us, and if you look hard enough you'll see it.

“For a thousand years I have been asking myself, "what will I do now?" And still I need not answer.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Desde hace mil años me pregunto: ¿qué haré ahora? Y aún no necesito responderme.
Voces (1943)

“Now I must, I suppose, explain why I have been writing this account. […] I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder. Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself, or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Fiction, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", Orbit 10 (1972)

“A desire for children, I suppose; for Nessa's life; for the sense of flowers breaking all round me involuntarily. […] Years and years ago, after the Lytton affair, I said to myself, walking up the hill at Bayreuth, never pretend that the things you haven't got are not worth having; good advice I think. And then I went on to say to myself that one must like things for themselves; or rather, rid them of their bearing upon one's personal life. One must venture on to the things that exist independently of oneself. Now this is very hard for young women to do. Yet I got satisfaction from it. And now, married to L., I never have to make the effort. Perhaps I have been to happy for my soul's good? And does some of my discontent come from feeling that?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

2 January 1923
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

“If I had been on the hills of Bethlehem in the year one, I do not think I should have heard angels singing because I do not hear them now, & there is no reason to suppose that they have stopped.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Northrop Frye 137

Related quotes

Related topics