"I stood upon a high place
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping, and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning, And said,
"Comrade! Brother!" --Stephen Hart Crane, "I Stood Upon A High Place (That's the whole poem, BTW)"

"Humans are so the universe will have something to talk through, God will have something to talk with, and the rest of us will have something to talk about." --Frederick Beuchner, "Wishful Thinking"

"Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Know that the Lord, he is God, it is he who has
made us, and not we ourselves. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
and into his courts with praise. Be thankful to him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting and his truth endures to
all generations." --The Bible, Psalm 100, 1, 3-5

"There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them
except in the form of bread."
     - Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

"God gives every bird its food, but does not throw it into the nest."
    --J.G. Holland

"This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look'd at the crowded heaven, and I said to my spirit
'When we become the enfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure
and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be fill'd and satisfied then?'
And my spirit said, 'No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond."
--Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself."

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy. "
     - Goethe (1749-1832)

"If God doesn't seem to be giving you what you ask, maybe he's giving
you something else."
    --Frederick Buechner, "Wishful Thinking"

"Every automobile bears on its license plate a number which represents the number of years
that have elapsed since the birth of Christ. This is a powerful symbol
of the ubiquity of God and the indifference of the human race." --Frederick Beuchner, "Wishful Thinking."

"Faith is not being sure where you're going, but going anyway. Doubt isn't the opposite
of faith; it is an element of faith." --Frederick Beuchner, "Wishful Thinking."

"Come, dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg;
the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly." --Dr. Manhattan, "The Watchmen."

"I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm
of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility
that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care
to know. Who can say what is going on, but I suspect that a part of it
is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes
something like this: You've turned up in the right place at the right time.
You're doing fine. Don't ever thing that you've been forgotten." --Frederick Beuchner, "Wishful Thinking"

"Avarice, greed, concupiscence, and so forth are all based on the mathematical truism that the more you get, the more you have. The remark of Jesus that it is more blessed to give than to recieve is based on the human truth that the more you give away in love, the more you are. It is not just for the sake of other people that Jesus tells us to give rather than get, but for our own sakes too." --Frederick Beuchner, "Wishful Thinking"

"My dear child, you must believe in God despite what the clergy tells you." --Benjamin Jowett

"You should never hit anyone about God." -- Phillip Roth, "The Conversion of the Jews"

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." --The Bible, Matthew 5:3-5

"The soul is a camera customarily set on 'ordinary'...but now and then it is tripped wide open and the film is flooded with an enigmatic image." --John Updike on the supernatural.

"When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a
guinea?'  'Oh, no, no, I see an innumberable company of the heavenly
host crying 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!"
  --John Dryden

"Sleeping through classes, we'll make it up later/ there's still so much time left to go
Misguided roses, we bloom in October/ emerging triumphant in time for the season's first snow."
    -- Edwin McCain, "The Rhythm of Life"

"God is subtle, but He is not malicious.  [Or, more loosely stated,] God is slick, but He ain't mean."
 -Albert Einstein

"Outer space is just a puzzle of stars
And music the mechanics of the human heart.
There's no place sacred, no honest reflection
Our senses made senseless by a lack of direction."
 --Jewel, "Under the Water"

"Sometimes, wishing is the wings on which comes truth. Sometimes, the truth is what sets us wishing for
it." --Fredrick Beuchner, "Wishful Thinking"

"I kick ass for the Lord!"
    --Priest, "Dead Alive."

"I'm starting to think that hell is finding out you've missed your
life.  We must use the gifts God gave us."
    --Whitley Streiber, "Unholy Fire"

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
        -Voltaire

"And when you die you're going to be down in hell and you'll look up and
you'll see us looking over the edge of heaven, and we'll be laughing at
you!  Ha ha hah ha ha!  And you'll say 'why are you laughing at me?'
and we'll say 'God told us to laugh at you!  He told us to laugh at
you!"
    --The Reverend, "It's a Complex World"

"Here is the difference between men and angels:  Angels know everything
and can do nothing about it.  Men know nothing and can do whatever they
want.  Absolute certainty about anything is anathema to the human
condition; free will is unknown to the angelic."
    -- Elliot S. Magin, "Kingdom Come"

"Youth is a religion from which one always ends up being converted."
 --Andre Malraux

"I think there is an immense shortage of Christian charity among
so-called Christians."
    --Harry Truman.

"Truth belongs to theology and philosophy, not science."
                -Prof. Morgan (comp Jex)

"...And I think, 'well, I've had a s-- of a life, all things
considered.  It wasn't fair.... But I think any God that can do sunsets
like that, a different one every night -- 'Strewth, you've got to
respect the old bastard, haven't you?"
    -- Old man (to Lucifer), "Sandman: Season of Mists"

"...keep on beating the path to God's door, because the one thing you
can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most
half-cocked and halting prayer the God you call on will finally come,
and even if He does not bring you the answer you want, He will bring you
Himself."
    --Frederick Buechner, "Wishful Thinking"
 

"What do people mean when they say 'I am not afraid of God because I
know He is good?'  Have they never even been to a dentist?"
    --C.S. Lewis, "A Grief Observed."

"Jesus is free - it's just the souvenirs that are expensive."
 - Kurt Starks

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to
forgo their use. "
     - Galileo Galilei
 
  "I've been chasing rainbows/ holding on to the end
But the rain is so real, Lord/ and the rainbows pretend."
    --Savatage, "Somewhere in Time (Streets: A Rock Opera)
 
"What happened?'
'You died.  Let me help you up."
    -- Unity Kincaid and Morpheus, "The Sandman: The Doll's House"

"You can't kill what's dead. Eternity's a long time. Get used to it."
 --Peina, "The Addiction"

"Men are scoundrels; they can get used to anything! Well, and if I am
wrong, if men are not really scoundrels, men in general, the whole human
race, I mean, --then all the rest is just prejudice, imaginary fears,
and there are no real barriers, and that is as it should be!"
 --Dostoevsky, "Crime and Punishment"

"Whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be bad for the pitcher."
        -Sancho Panza from "Man of La Mancha

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
    --"Closing Time,"  Semisonic

"The myth of human equality only succeeds in perpetuating mediocrity."
-- from "The Pretender"
 
"I wish the real world would just stop hassling me."
    --Matchbox 20, "The Real World."

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, but with strange eons even death may die."
    --H.P. Lovecraft.

"The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis.  A man grows what he can,
and does his best.  Because what you buy is what you own.  And what you
own always comes back to you."
 --Judd, "Pet Sematary"

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we  go our ways -- I to die and
you to live. Which is better, only God knows."
 --Socrates

"Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same,
The more you change, the less you feel.
Believe, believe in me, believe, believe
That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain
We're not the same, we're different tonight
Tonight, so bright, tonight" --The Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight, Tonight"

"Reality is popular consensus
Sanity is one of our best defenses
Against being who we are, and feeling what we feel
Nobody's happy, nobody's real
And we hide behind our finely crafted fences." --Joshua Nite, "The Missing Link"

"Out of the dusk a shadow
Then a spark;
Out of the cloud a silence,
Then a lark;
Out of the heart a rapture,
Then a pain;
Out of the dead, cold ashes,
Life again." --John Banister Tabb, "Evolution"

"Pity this busy monster, manunkind, not.
Progress is a comfortable disease:
Your victim (life and death safely beyond) plays with the bigness
of his littleness." --ee cummings

"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that
isn't thinking isn't thinking of." --They Might Be Giants, "Where your eyes don't go."

"I want to raise my freak flag higher and higher
I want to raise my freak flag and never be alone." --They Might Be Giants, "How Can I Sing Like A Girl?"

"I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that *you* sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer by." --Edgar Allan Poe, "To --"

"Oh! That my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow." --Edgar Allan Poe, "Dreams"

"Time is the storyteller you can't shut up." --Carl Sandburg

"Whether we will philosophize or we won't philosophize, we must philosophize." --Aristotle

"One can no more keep the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to
a shore. For the sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty,
it is called remorse. God stirs up the soul as well as the ocean." --Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

"I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing." --T.S. Eliot, "Preludes."

"I me, me be. God damn, I am." --Weezer, "Undone (The sweater song)."

"Behind the masks that pass for faces
Hours are lost in forbidden places." --The Meat Puppets, "Forbidden Places."

"Not all those who wander are lost." --Anonymous

 "Void equals infinity!"
 --The Professor, "City of Lost Children"

"Certain thoughts are prayers.  There are moments when, no matter what
the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees."
    --Victor Hugo

"Why? Why the innocent, punished? Why the sacrifice? Why the pain? There aren't any promises. Nothing
certain. Only that some get called, others saved. She won't ever know of the hardship and grief of those of us left
behind. We committ these bodies to the void with a glad heart. For within each seed, there is a promise of a flower,
and within each death, no matter how small, there is always a new life. A new beginning."
 --Dillon, Alien 3

 "Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- by themselves or by others."
 --Mark Twain
 
"Every man's got a devil, and he can't rest until he finds him."
        -Top Dollar, "The Crow."
 

"All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque."
 --Guildenstern, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead."

"Guildenstern: I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no
madder than a man talking nonsense not to
 himself.
 Rosencrantz: Or just as mad.
 Guildenstern: Or just as mad.
 Rosencrantz: And he does both.
 Guildenstern: So there you are.
 Rosencrantz: Stark raving sane."
 --"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"

"The world does not judge actions on their merit, but on their chance
results."
        -Boethius

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities
of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.
Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the
weak through the valley of darkness, for he
is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I
will strike down upon thee with great vengeance
and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my
brothers!  And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"
 --"Ezekiel 25:17," Pulp Fiction
 
"Childhood's over the moment you know you're going to die."
        --Top Dollar, "The Crow"

"Only two things are certain: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm
not certain about the universe."
        --Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that
I have no grasp of it whatsoever."
 --"Baron Munchausen," The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

"When the authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, There is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have
sex with the authorities." --Matt Groening

"Dreams die hard -- and you hold them in your hand long after they have turned to dust."
 --Bowen, "Dragonheart"

"We grew up way too fast, and now there's nothing to believe...reruns
all become our history."
  -- The Goo Goo Dolls, "Name

"The universe rearranges itself to fit your perception of reality."
 
"Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly
in us, but our emptiness.  The hardest thing to hide is something that is not
there."
 --Eric Hoffer

"I think about the dirt that I'll be wearing for a shirt, and I hope that I get
old before I die." --They Might Be Giants, "Hope that I get Old Before I Die"

"Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." --Robert Frost

"These moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain." --"Roy Batty," Bladerunner.

"Your inside is out and your outside is in. Your outside is in and your inside is out." --The Beatles,
"Everybody's Got Something To Hide 'Cept For Me And My Monkey."

"Life unwinds like a cheap sweater
But since I gave up hope, I feel a lot better." --Steve Taylor, "Since I Gave Up Hope"

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. "
     - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"Above the unfathomed deep
Of Death we move in sleep,
And who among us knows
How near the brink he goes?" --John Bannister Tabb, "The Precipice (in its entirety)"

"...We are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves." --F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Rich Boy"

"I find myself haunted by a spooky man named 'Me'...I wish that I could jump out of my skin." --They Might Be Giants, "Piece of Dirt."

"Shudder as you observe, before your very eyes, that most rare and tragic of nature's mistakes! I give you...the average man! Physically unremarkable, it has instead a deformed set of values. Notice the hideously bloated sense of humanity's importance. The club-footed social conscience and the withered optimism. It's certainly not for the squeamish, is it?" --The Joker, "The Killing Joke."

"In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters
of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods."
  --Arthur Schopenhauer

"I stand firm in my belief of what's right!  I refuse to compromise my
principles!  ...I don't *need* to compromise my principles, because they don't have
the slightest bearing on what happens to me, anyway."
    --"Calvin," Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons.

"If I have to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!" --The Joker, "The Killing Joke."

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
 --John Dryden
 
"In any man who dies there dies with him
His first snow and kiss and fight...
Not people die, but worlds die in them."
 --Yevgeny Yevtushenko