Just Quotes (page 446)
It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there. And somehow, there was a disturbing comfort in that, and, despite myself, I’d envision his face.
Anne Rice

It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes.
George Carlin
White Sky. Trees fading at the skyline, the mountains gone. My hands dangled from the cuffs of my jacket as if they weren’t my own. I never got used to the way the horizon there could just erase itself and leave you marooned, adrift, in an incomplete dreamscape that was like a sketch for the world you knew -the outline of a single tree standing in for a grove, lamp-posts and chimneys floating up out of context before the surrounding canvas was filled in-an amnesia-land, a kind of skewed...
Donna Tartt
He [Jesus] speaks in parables, and though we have approached these parables reverentially all these many years and have heard them expounded as grave and reverent vehicles of holy truth, I suspect that many if not all of them were originally not grave at all but were antic, comic, often more than just a little shocking.
Frederick Buechner
Harry!" said Fred, elbowing Percy out of the way and bowing deeply. "Simply splendid to see you, old boy--"Marvelous," said George, pushing Fred aside and seizing Harry's hand in turn. "Absolutely spiffing."Percy scowled."That's enough, now," said Mrs. Weasley."Mum!" said Fred as though he'd only just spotted her and seizing her hand too. "How really corking to see you--
J. K. Rowling
God is calling us to live for the sake of Christ and to do that through suffering. Christ chose suffering; it didn’t just happen to Him. He chose it as the way to create and perfect the church. Now He calls us to choose suffering. That is, He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him on the Calvary road and deny ourselves and make sacrifices for the sake of ministering to the church and presenting His sufferings to the world.
John Piper
My head is like some ridiculous barn packed full of stuff I
want to write about,” she said. “Images, scenes, snatches of
words … in my mind they’re all glowing, all alive. Write! they
shout at me. A great new story is about to be born I can feel it.
It’ll transport me to some brand-new place. Problem is, once I
sit at my desk and put them all down on paper, I realize
something vital is missing. It doesn’t crystallize—no crystals,
just pebbles. And I’m not transported anywhere.
Haruki Murakami

Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven—corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats—account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors.
Bill Bryson