The legion of noble Christians Quotes

“No, it couldn't all be bad the way Stonebreaker insisted it was. There were people who hid the children from the sanctioned murderers; people who looked the horror in the eye and said, no, no, you can't do it any more, we're against you even if you kill us. Thus had Sweeney's friends acted, and they had redeemed belief and tradition for millions.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“Yes, they were part of him. He hoped he was a little part of them--if only a memory, a fraction of their consciousness. How the Sweeney's of the world needed them. He blinked fiercely, stemming his tears. I am not much of a man, but at least I have known them.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“Whatever God is He's in them. Not everyone. But in some people. He sort of doles Himself out a little, and He shows up in people where you'd never expect it. Huguette and Father Latour and Kruis and Mr. Munk. God gave a little piece of Himself to make 'em.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“Whatever God is He's in them.<> Not everyone. But in some people. He sort of doles Himself out a little, and He shows up in people where you'd never expect it. Huguette and Father Latour and Kruis and Mr. Munk. God gave a little piece of Himself to make 'em.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“She pushed a strand of white hair under the scarf. Surely, it seemed to Sweeney and Wettlaufer, she was the essence of the good deed unselfishly performed, the deed that could save the world if the world wanted saving.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“The Vatican was decent about that sort of thing. Protecting Jews not from oppression, but from too much oppression. Condemn the Jews to degradation, to censure as deicides, well-poisoners, child-killers, yet try to prevent them from being slaughtered entirely.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“I ain't inspired any more, Sherm; there was this painting I saw in the museum in Amsterdam. It was called 'Christ Preaching in the House of Mary and Martha.' And the whole foreground of the picture, maybe three-fourths of the canvas, is a kitchen in one of them Dutch houses, and there's a cook plucking chickens. All around her there's dead rabbits, pheasants, turkeys, ducks, sides of beef, six kinds of fish, clams, oysters, potatoes, apples, eggplant, kohlrabi, rutabaga, carrots, Swiss chard, and God knows what else. Food, food, food. And where's Christ? Well, way back in a little alcove off the kitchen, there He is, with the women, preaching. Who cares about Him, when everyone wants to stuff their gut with rabbit and turkey? Who hears His sermon, when there's lots of roast duck and fried oysters?"
"What in the world has that to do with our survey?" asked Wettlaufer.
"Sherman, you and me and this survey and these people like Huguettte Roux and Willem Kruis--we're preaching way back in the corner to two people. But most of the world is in that kitchen drooling over those rabbits and geese!”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“We can't all be like him, or his brother, or Helms, or the rest of those people.'
'No,' she said sadly. 'But I wish to God we could be something else.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“There is a kind of psychotic middle-class hate asserting itself here, exactly the thing that produced Hitler. It strikes out everywhere, at anyone, mindless, cruel, convinced only it is right and that all who disagree are traitors.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey