Wishful Thinking Quotes

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“It is as impossible for man to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possbly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“if you don't have doubts you're either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants-in-the-pants of faith. They keep it alive and moving.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“Principles are what people have instead of God.
To be a Christian means among other things to be willing if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or your neighbour's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if there's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child.
Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them.
'Principle' is an even duller word than 'Religion'.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“In other words to live Eternal Life in the full and final sense is to be with God as Christ is with him, and with each other as Christ is with us.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

“The real turning point in human history is less apt to be the day the wheel is invented or Rome falls than the day a boy is born to a couple of hick Jews.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC