Melissa Coyle > Melissa's Quotes

“We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.”
― John Stott

“Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.”
― John Stott

“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as 'God on the cross.' In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering. 'The cross of Christ ... is God’s only self-justification in such a world” as ours....' 'The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak; they rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.”
― John Stott, Cross

“I do not say that there is no glory to be gained [in war]; but it is not personal glory. In itself, no cause was ever more glorious than that of men who struggle, not to conquer territory, not to gather spoil, not to gratify ambition, but for freedom, for religion, for hearth and home, and to revenge the countless atrocities inflicted upon them by their oppressors.”
― G. A. HENTY

“Surely only boring people went in for conversations consisting of questions and answers. The art of true conversation consisted in the play of minds.”
― Ved Mehta, All for Love

“Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

“We take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”
― Cynthia Ozick

“Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”
― Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

“That's what friends should do. cherish the good and pretend not to notice the harmless rest.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“Don't go wasting all them bright tomorrows you ain't even seen by hanging on to what happened yesterday. Let go, child. Just breathe out and let go.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“But lately,' she said, wiggling her bare toes, 'I find all men to be very much like wearing high-heeled shoes -- I love how pretty they make me feel, but by the end of the night I can't wait to get rid of them.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“Never tie your happiness to the tail of someone else's kite.”
― Beth Hoffman, Looking for Me

“Don't grow up too fast, Darling. Age is inevitable, but if you nurture a childlike heart, you'll never, ever grow old.”
― Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

“But there's a blessing in everything if we open our eyes.”
― beth hoffman

“The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you.”
― Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
― Mother Teresa

“So what are you planning to do with the rest of your life?
Develop a drinking problem. More Scotch, please.”
― Daniel Silva, The Marching Season

“Tell me a story of deep delight.”
― Robert Penn Warren

“Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year.”
― Charles Lamb

“I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey.”
― Jeffrey Archer, A Prisoner of Birth

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.”
― Neil Gaiman

“I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.”
― Elizabeth Strout, Abide with Me

“I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.”
― Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist

“The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“Lonely people have enthusiasms which cannot always be explained. When something strikes them as funny, the intensity and length of their laughter mirrors the depth of their loneliness, and they are capable of laughing like hyenas. When something touches their emotions, it runs through them like Paul Revere, awakening feelings that gather into great armies.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.”
― Herman Hesse

“Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.”
― Haruki Marukami

“It is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble your foe.”
― Anne Brontë