
“I'm not a religious man, right, I don't even believe in God. But still Catholic, obviously.”
Dara Ó Briain: Live at the Theatre Royal (2006)
As quoted in At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl (1987) edited by Inge Jens, translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn; also in Voices of the Holocaust : Resistors, Liberation, Understanding (1997) by Lorie Jenkins McElroy
Context: I'm still so remote from God that I don't even sense his presence when I pray. Sometimes when I utter God's name, in fact, I feel like sinking into a void. It isn't a frightening or dizzying sensation, it's nothing at all — and that's far more terrible. But prayer is the only remedy for it, and however many devils scurry around inside me, I shall cling to the rope God has thrown me in Jesus Christ, even if my numb hands can no longer feel it.
“I'm not a religious man, right, I don't even believe in God. But still Catholic, obviously.”
Dara Ó Briain: Live at the Theatre Royal (2006)
“When I don't have an answer, I pray. God is the only alternative source of help.”
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 147
“I don't just pray for God to open doors, I also pray for God to close doors.”
James Montgomery DJ AM Says He Was 'Saved For A Reason' In First Post-Crash Interview http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1597103/20081015/dj_am.jhtml October. 15 2008. Retrieved August 30, 2009. (October 2008).
Author's Remarks.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (2003)
Context: I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty. There are some ten thousand religious sects — each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain — which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief. And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why — which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.
CNN interview with Tucker Carlson http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/03/cnna.spears/ (3 September 2003)
“I don't need to pray. I have God in myself.”
In Bitter American Exile, the Shah's Twin Sister, Ashraf, Defends Their Dynasty (1980)