Quotes about pew (19 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Tell me a story, Pew.
What kind of story, child?
A story with a happy ending.
There's no such thing in all the world.
As a happy ending?
As an ending.”

Jeanette Winterson book Lighthousekeeping

Source: Lighthousekeeping (2004), p. 49

World , Happiness

“On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man's carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scoured by any white-light religion.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

As quoted in the Introduction by Burton H. Wolfe
The Satanic Bible (1969)

Men , God , Children , Religion

“I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"The New Wildcat Religion"

Books , Religion , Tear , Singing

“But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their world-view in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.
That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop, or the beauty shop, or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failing. And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour of American life occurs on Sunday morning.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Life , Women , Men , People

“For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Life , Women , Men , People

“I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

Rick Perry (1950) 14th and current United States Secretary of Energy

Campaign advertisement, December 2011
2011

School , Christmas , Country

“Bask in it. In spite of what the monks say, you can meet God without getting up early. You can meet God lounging in the pew. The hardship is a man-made device because man cannot exist without passion.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

The Passion (1987)

God , Passion

“Hers was simply not a pew-shaped spine.
“I just never had a reason ever to sit in a church,” she had told people. She wasn’t vehement about it. She just walked around and lived and moved her hands that were pebble-smooth and pebble-small. Work had polished the nails of those hands with a polish you could never buy in a bottle. The touching of children had made them soft, and the raising of children had made them temperately stern, and the loving of a husband had made them gentle.”

Ray Bradbury book The Golden Apples of the Sun

Powerhouse (1948)
The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)

Love , Children , People

“The priest looked at him. Do I know you? he said.
Suttree placed one hand on the pew in front of him. An old woman was going along the altar rail with a dusting rag. He struggled to his feet. No, he said. You dont know me.
The priest stepped back, inspecting is clothes, his fishstained shoes.
I just fell asleep a minute. I was resting.
The priest gave a little smile, lightly touched with censure, remonstrance gentled. God's house is not exactly the place to take a nap, he said.
It's not God's house.
I beg your pardon?
It's not God's house.
Oh?
Suttree waved his hand vaguely and stepped past the priest and went down the aisle. The priest watched him. He smiled sadly, but a smile for that.”

Cormac McCarthy book Suttree

page 255
Suttree (1979)

God , Smile , Shoe , Past

“Can a woman not keep her lover without she study to always please him with pleasure? Pew! then let her give up the game. Or shall my lover think with pleasing of me to win me indeed? Faugh! he payeth me then; doth he think I am for hire?”

Eric Rücker Eddison book Mistress of Mistresses

Fiorinda, in Chapter 7, "A Night-Piece on Ambremerine"
Mistress of Mistresses (1935)

Pleasure , Game , Lovers , Thinking

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on… According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing “25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51% of those polled, “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.” Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.”

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

Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-on-preventing-muslim-immigration (2015)
2010s, 2015

Women , Parting , Country

“It is commonly said that no man was ever converted by argument, but there is a single one which will make any Laodicean in England, let him be once love-sick, wear prayer-books and become a zealous Episcopalian – the argument that his sweetheart can be seen from his pew.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Desperate Remedies (1871), vol. 2, ch. 4

Love , Books

“San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. … Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

2000s, Speech at the Four Seasons, New York (25 September 2008)

Suicide , Strong , Universe , Loyalty

“The first-century church in Jerusalem clearly had it. And they didn't have any fancy accoutrements. So it can't possibly be stained-glass windows, hand-carved cherubs, custom silk tapestries, gold-inlaid hymnals, thousand-pipe organs, marble floors, mile-high steeples, hand-painted ceilings, mahogany pews, giant cast-iron bells, and a three-piece, thousand dollar suit. It doesn't stick any better to a young, hip, shaved-headed pastor with rimmed glasses, a goatee, and tattoos than it does to an older, stately gentleman in a robe. Nor is it spotlights and lasers, video production, satellite dishes, fog machines, shiny gauze backdrops, four-color glossy brochures, sexy billboards, loud "contemporary" music, free donuts, coffee shops, hip bookstores, break dancing or acrobatics, sermon series named after television shows, a retro-modern matching chair and table onstage, or blue jeans and Heelys. It is not being on television, being on the Internet, or being on book and magazine covers. It is real. It is genuine.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Books , Music , Color , Coffee

“I had never heard a Mass like that one.. the church vault was split open, the walls were rasped and peeling, the altars were wrecked or had been thrown out; worst of all, that great dark hole at the end, where the high altar had been, the paving hidden beneath the powder and rubble, no pews to sit on, everyone standing or kneeling before a wooden table with a crucifix placed on it, a sunbeam shining sharply down through a gap in the vault and a cloud of flies dancing in the harsh light that illuminated the whole Church and made it seem as though we were hearing Mass in the middle of the street. [-] I had never heard a Mass like that one [-] The bread and the Wine appeared as though they were fresh: the Host appeared to be beating and, in the sunlight, when the Wine was poured into the chalice, it appeared to be blood that was flowing [-] and then the thought, the sentiment occurred to me that Mass should always be heard in this way, in fear and trembling”

Joan Maragall (1860–1911) Spanish writer

Fear , Way , Light , Appearance

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

"An Expedition to the Pole", Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982)

Life , God , Children , Idea

“I departed from parental paths significantly and abruptly one Sunday morning when, sitting in the family pew of the Hyde Park United Church and idly twisting a loose button on the cushion beside me, I said to myself, "I do not believe in God." Some months previously… when our minister fell back on St. Anselm's ontological argument to prove the existence of God, he entirely failed to convince me. Quite the contrary, the argument struck me as an abuse of language. Though I duly submitted to the ritual of confirmation… Horton's unconvincing argument had sown doubt in my mind; and for that reason I can assign, on that morning, listening to his more emotional, hortatory rhetoric… the balance tipped, committing me to a secret, personal rejection of the Christian piety my parents held dear.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

The Pursuit of Truth: A Historian's Memoir (2005)

God , Secret , Family , Parent

“Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And living in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Having all that room, seeing as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time.”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Dogs , Time

“There is a world of difference between the one who would imitate the conduct of the successful merchant, who sits in the front pew of his church, and him who would follow literally the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 53
Context: There is a world of difference between the one who would imitate the conduct of the successful merchant, who sits in the front pew of his church, and him who would follow literally the teachings of Jesus Christ. To attain perfectly the one ideal—if it be an ideal—is a comparatively simple task. To attain the other, is perhaps an impossibility.

World , Success , Christ