c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Only the big souls can forgive the big crimes!
— Mehmet Murat ildan
I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime
—  I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last.
And maybe that’s was her biggest crime of all. Making him fall in love with her.
— Maya Banks, Rush
I'm intrigued by how ordinary behavior exists so close beside its opposite.
— Richard Ford, Canada
Secret ceremonies in which malevolent men and women cloaked in hooded robes, hiding behind painted faces and chanting demonic incantations while inflicting sadistic wounds on innocent children lying on makeshift alters, or tied to inverted crosses, sounds like the stuff of which B-grade horror movies are made. Some think amoral religious cults only populate the world of Rosemary's Baby, but don't exist in real life. Or, do they? Ask Jenny Hill.
— Judy Byington, Twenty-Two Faces
There is always a unique atmosphere in the car when you drive through the City with a dead body in the back.
— Steen Langstrup, In The Shadow of Sadd
It was as if they'd discovered something that had once been there but had gotten hidden or misunderstood or forgotten over time, and they were charmed by it once more, and by one another. Which seems only right and expectable for married people. They caught a glimpse of the person they fell in love with, and who sustained life. For some, that vision must never dim - as is true of me. But it was odd that our parents should catch their glimpse, and have frustration, anxiety and worry pass away like clouds dispersing after a storm, refind their best selves, but for that glimpse to happen just before landing our family in ruin.
— Richard Ford, Canada
This monograph by Special Agent Ken Lanning (1992) is merely a guide for those who may investigate this phenomenon, as the title indicates, and not a study. The author is a well known skeptic regarding cult and ritual abuse allegations and has consulted on a number of cases but to our knowledge has not personally investigated the majority of these cases, some of which have produced convictions. p179[refers to Lanning, K. V. (1992)Investigator's guide to allegations of "ritual" child abuse. Quantico, VA: National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.]
— Pamela Sue Perskin, Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America, 2nd Edition
One example was the assertion that a seven-year FBI study revealed no evidence of organized cult or ritual activity in the United States. In reality there is no such study. The day following the ABC program, my office contacted the FBI and requested a copy of the alleged study. The bureau responded in writing indicating that no such study existed.[referring to the Lanning report - Lanning, K. V. (1992)Investigator's guide to allegations of "ritual" child abuse. Quantico, VA: National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.]
— Pamela Sue Perskin, Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology, and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America, 2nd Edition
Every single time it was grand. I loved the moment when you announce the stickup and everything suddenly goes brighter and sharper and the world seems to spin faster. You show them the gun and say hand it over and there's no telling what's going to happen in the next tick of the clock.
— James Carlos Blake, Handsome Harry
I saw her sign the register, but her name isn't on it any more. The bellboy says he never saw her. Now they've got me so I'm scared and shaky, like a little kid is of the dark. I want you men to help me. Won't you men help me?''We'll help you' - said the lieutenant in charge. Slowly, awfully slowly; I didn't like that slowness - 'if we're able to.' And I knew what he meant; if we find any evidence that your story is true.("All At Once, No Alice")
— Cornell Woolrich, Tales of Obsession: Mystery Stories of Fatal Attractions and Deadly Desires
I thought part of the idea of having therapy was putting one in touch with his or her feelings. And don’t give me all that about transference, and counter-transference and all that. I know what I feel. And it has nothing to do with all that. And you also feel for me. And if you don’t know that, then maybe it’s you who needs to have therapy to gain a better knowledge of yourself.
— Olga Núñez Miret, Teamwork
But I’m completely innocent in this case. I’m the victim. Don’t you understand? If she’d just dressed in an appropriate manner, nothing would have happened. I’m a peaceful man, and now I’m going to prison.”Conversation on Radio Fake 112.8 MHzIn The Shadow of Sadd.
— Steen Langstrup, In The Shadow of Sadd
AK 47, is perfect copy, yes? Every detail. Like real thing. Yes. Kalashnikov. Your boy, he be happy for Uncle Sante, no?”“I’m sorry, Sante. It’s really nice of you, but I don’t want Sofus playing with guns.”Conversation between George Hanson and SanteIn The Shadow of Sadd
— Steen Langstrup, In The Shadow of Sadd
Jimmy Sadd is the most evil man I’ve ever known. I mean really evil. I’m not talking about tough, or cruel – all the bosses are tough and cruel. You’ll never get anywhere in our world if you’re not respected. But Jimmy ... God damn, Bruno, getting involved with Sadd ... I’d rather do a deal with the devil himself. Sadd is worse. You’ll never get out.”George HansonIn The Shadow of Sadd.
— Steen Langstrup, In The Shadow of Sadd
The hallmarks of the noir style are fear, guilt and loneliness, breakdown and despair, sexual obsession and social corruption, a sense that the world is controlled by, malignant forces preying on us, a rejection of happy endings and a preference for resolutions heavy with doom, but always redeemed by a breathtakingly vivid poetry of word (if the work was a novel or story) or image (if it was a movie). ("Introduction")
— Francis M. Nevins Jr., Darkness At Dawn
Cursed greed of gold, what crimes thy tyrant power has caused. -- Virgil
— Debby Grahl, The Silver Crescent
Fine by me, Jack. I just have to plug in the machine. The City will have to change its name to Sunny Beach.”“We don’t have a beach.”“Well, you know what I mean …”Conversation on Radio Fake 112.8 MHzIn The Shadow of Sadd
— Steen Langstrup, In The Shadow of Sadd
You must have been working very hard here, with so few distractions.”Mary’s eyes darkened and she looked away.“Not quite as much as I hoped for. At times the loneliness and the unanswered questions can get overwhelming, like very loud voices echoing inside my head, just asking ‘why’ ‘who’ and making me think about my wasted life.
— Olga Núñez Miret, Memory
It’s…The only way I can get on with my life is by forgetting what went on before. Dave used to tell me that I didn’t have control over what the bastard of my father did to me, and that he’d been punished for it, and I might as well concentrate on the rest of my life, because over that…I had some control and I could decide what to do. I could change it over; I could become anything I wanted if I just tried hard enough.
— Olga Núñez Miret, Teamwork
Eve: "She completely eye-fucked you." Roarke: "I know. I feel so cheap and used." Eve: "Shit. You got off on it. Men always do." Roarke: "True enough, which is why we're so often cheap and used.
— J.D. Robb, Kindred in Death
I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.
— Mario Puzo
How is a sincere criminal, trying hard, going to get ahead in his profession if his victim fails to cooperate?
— Robert A. Heinlein, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Drug addicts driven to crime to finance their drug addiction are not often inclined toward violent crime. Violence requires all different kinds of energy, and most drug addicts like to expend their energy not on their professional crime but on what their professional crime lets them afford. Drug addicts are often burglars, therefore.
— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
Eve: "Where's Mister Scary?"Roarke: "Summerset has the night off."Eve: "You mean the house is Summerset-free? Damn shame we have to waste it with work.
— J.D. Robb, Kindred in Death
Alien Affairs. Bad name I always thought, makes it sound like they're shagging them rather than investigating them.
— Peter F. Hamilton, Great North Road
Al... You ever kill anybody? In the United States? Because I know you mean it and everything, but I know these guys better than I know you. They're soldiers, that's all. No questions, no time to ask, no talk. Cops are worse, and less predictable. When you pull a gun, you've gotta be ready to kill somebody, and I'm telling you it's better to run.
— Phillip Rock, Hickey & Boggs
There's an old saying," Buck said. "A hundred things can go wrong in a holdup, and if you can think of fifty of them you're a damn genius.
— James Carlos Blake, A World of Thieves: A Novel
He's prowling back and forth like a lion with distemper now. There's a shiny streak down one side of his face. "I shouldn't have let her go ahead - I ought to be hung! Something's gone wrong. I can't stand this any more!" he says with a choked sound. "I'm starting now -""But how are you -""Spring for it and fire as I go if they try to stop me." And then as he barges out, the fat lady waddling solicitously after him, "Stay there; take it if she calls - tell her I'm on the way-"He plunges straight at the street-door from all the way back in the hall, like a fullback headed for a touchdown. That's the best way. Gun bedded in his pocket, but hand gripping it ready to let fly through lining and all. He slaps the door out of his way without slowing and skitters out along the building, head and shoulders defensively lowered.It *was* the taxi, you bet. No sound from it, at least not at this distance, just a thin bluish haze slowly spreading out around it that might be gas-fumes if its engine were turning; and at his end a long row of un-colored spurts - of dust and stone-splinters - following him along the wall of the flat he's tearing away from. Each succeeding one a half yard too far behind him, smacking into where he was a second ago. And they never catch up. ("Jane Brown's Body")
— Cornell Woolrich, The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich
She had signed her own death-warrant. He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame, she had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew there was one. He had known for six weeks now. Little things had told him. One day he came home and there was a cigar-butt in an ashtray, still moist at one end, still warm at the other. There were gasoline-drippings on the asphalt in front of their house, and they didn't own a car. And it wouldn't be a delivery-vehicle, because the drippings showed it had stood there a long time, an hour or more. And once he had actually glimpsed it, just rounding the far corner as he got off the bus two blocks down the other way. A second-hand Ford. She was often very flustered when he came home, hardly seemed to know what she was doing or saying at all.He pretended not to see any of these things; he was that type of man, Stapp, he didn't bring his hates or grudges out into the open where they had a chance to heal. He nursed them in the darkness of his mind. That's a dangerous kind of a man.If he had been honest with himself, he would have had to admit that this mysterious afternoon caller was just the excuse he gave himself, that he'd daydreamed of getting rid of her long before there was any reason to, that there had been something in him for years past now urging Kill, kill, kill. Maybe ever since that time he'd been treated at the hospital for a concussion.("Three O'Clock")
— Cornell Woolrich, The Cornell Woolrich Omnibus: Rear Window and Other Stories / I Married a Dead Man / Waltz into Darkness
And he's alone there, with the unconscious pilot lying a little way off for company, and some other guy he's never even seen, only spoken to over the radio.He wants to sleep so badly - dying they call it - and he can't. Something's bothering him to keep him awake. ("Jane Brown's Body")
— Cornell Woolrich, The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich
The struggle doesn't last long; it's too unequal. Their momentary surprise overcome, they close in on him. The well-directed slice of a gun-butt slackens the good arm; it's easy to pry the disabled one from around the racketeer's collar.Tereshko is trembling with his anger. 'Now him again!' he protests, as though at an injustice. 'All they do is die and then get up and walk around again! What'sa matter, you guys using spitballs for slugs? No, don't kick at him, that'll never do it - I think the guy has nine lives!' ("Jane Brown's Body")
— Cornell Woolrich, The Fantastic Stories of Cornell Woolrich
We thought we were invincible and Dominic proved us all wrong,” - Jesse Carlisle
— Nina D'Angelo, Nowhere to Run
One must live with all, e'en if life be hell: Crime makes shame, not monetary stricture
— Multatuli, Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company
Then Cynthia looked at him and smiled, and he knew he couldn’t possibly resist her, no matter what she had done. It felt as though the two of them had just stripped naked and dived off a high cliff over a beautiful river. The water below looked cool and inviting. But what if it was only six inches deep?
— Robert Burton Robinson, Bicycle Shop Murder
Rape is a more heinous crime than murder since the rape victim dies throughout the period she lives.
— Amit Abraham
Punishment creates crime.
— Silvia Hartmann
No one mentioned the sad piece of tinsel, naked in places, hanging across the chimneybreast, nor that Twelfth Night was a week ago. No one mentioned the two Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. No one mentioned them because inside they were blank.
— Andrew Barrett, A Long Time Dead
Stay home and the crooks win. They get the night, by default and concession, the night which should rightly belong to all of us.
— Claire Cross, Double Trouble
There was noise in the corridor outside Alice’s office; and though it was nothing of concern, they separated. Roger stood, fingers tucked into his waistcoat pockets, admiring prints on the wall that held no interest for him. The noise was Melanie, but her voice, a length of razor wire wrapped in a soufflé, eventually faded.
— Andrew Barrett, A Long Time Dead
As for the comparatively small class of violent crimes against persons, unconnected with any idea of gain, they were almost wholly confined, even in your day, to the ignorant and bestial; and in these days, when education and good manners are not the monopoly of a few, but universal, such atrocities are scarcely ever heard of.
— Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887
And then, with a shock like high-voltage coursing through me, the phone beside me started pealing thinly.I just stood there and stared at it, blood draining from my face. A call to a tollbooth? It must, it must be a wrong number, somebody wanted the Information Booth or-! It must have been audible outside, with all I had the slide partly closed. One of the redcaps passing by turned, looked over, then started coming across toward where I was. To get rid of him I picked up the receiver, put it to my ear.'You'd better come out now, time's up,' a flat, deadly voice said. 'They're calling your train, but you're not getting on that one - or any other.''Wh-where are talking from?''The next booth to yours,' the voice jeered. 'You forgot the glass inserts only reach halfway down.'The connection broke and a man's looming figure was shadowing the glass in front of my eyes, before I could even get the receiver back on the hook. I dropped it full-length, tensed my right arm to pound it through his face as soon as I shoved the glass aside. He had a revolver-bore for a top vest-button, trained on me. Two more had shown up behind him, from which direction I hadn't noticed. It was very dark in the booth now, their collective silhouettes shut out all the daylight. The station and all its friendly bustle was blotted out, had receded into the far background, a thousand miles away for all the help it could give me. I slapped the glass wearily aside, came slowly out.One of them flashed a badge - maybe Crow had loaned him his for the occasion. 'You're being arrested for putting slugs in that phone. It won't do any good to raise your voice and shriek for help, try to tell people different. But suit yourself.'I knew that as well as he; heads turned to stare after us by the dozens as they started with me in their midst through the station's main-level. But not one in all that crowd would have dared interfere with what they mistook for a legitimate arrest in the line of duty. The one with the badge kept it conspicuously tilted in his upturned palm, at sight of which the frozen onlookers slowly parted, made way for us through their midst. I was being led to my doom in full view of scores of people. ("Graves For The Living")
— Cornell Woolrich
When a beautiful blonde asks, you don't say no.
— V.T. Davy, Black Art
@The darkest and most complex novel in (the Murdoch) series.
— Maureen Jennings
This may not be art as art commonly goes; the lack of discipline, of control, would seem to rule it out of that category. And yet Woolrich's lack of control over emotions is a crucial element in his work, not only because it intensifies the fragility and momentariness of love but also because it tears away the comfortable belief, evident in some of the greatest works of the human imagination such as Oedipus Rex, that nobility in the face of nothingness is possible. And if Woolrich's work is not art as commonly understood, there is an art beyond art, whose form is not the novel or story but the scream; and of this art Woolrich is beyond doubt a master. ("Introduction")
— Francis M. Nevins Jr.
Rape is a crime against sleep and memory; it's after image imprints itself like an irreversible negative from the camera obscure of dreams. Though their bodies would heal, their souls had sustained a damage beyond compensation
— Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides
The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion.
— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.
— Mario Puzo, The Godfather
Little crimes breed big crimes. You smile at little crimes and then big crimes blow your head off.
— Terry Pratchett, Snuff
It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body. After she unbuckled her seat belt, after she pulled a stick pen from the rubber band on the sun visor, after her long fingers brushed her hip to feel the comfort of her service piece, what she always did was pause. Not long. Just the length of a slow deep breath. That's all it took for her to remember the one thing she will never forget. Another body waited. She drew the breath. And when she could feel the raw edges of the hole that had been blown in her life, Detective Nikki Heat was ready. She opened the car door and went to work . . . Heat could have made it easier on herself by parking closer, but this was another of her rituals: the walk up. Every crime scene was a flavor of chaos, and these two hundred feet afforded the detective her only chance to fill the clean slate with her own impressions.
— Richard Castle
There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.
— Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
I'm here to tell niggas it ain't all swell.There's Heaven then there's Hell niggasOne day your cruisin' in your seven,Next day your sweatin', forgettin' your lies,Alibis ain't matchin' up, bullshit catchin' upHit with the RICO, they repoed your vehicleEverything was all good just a week ago'Bout to start bitchin' ain't you?Ready to start snitchin' ain't you?I forgive you. Weak ass, hustlin' just ain't youAside from the fast carsHoneys that shake they ass in barsYou know you wouldn't be involvedWith the Underworld dealers, carriers of mac-millersEast coast bodiers, West coast cap-peelersLittle monkey niggas turned gorillas.
— Jay-Z, Decoded
Use your intuition. Picture how things happen, why they happen. Don’t stick rigidly to first impressions, and once you’ve read the rule book, throw it away. Better still, burn the bastard.
— Andrew Barrett, A Long Time Dead
I do not know whether it came from his own innate depravity or from the promptings of his master, but he was rude enough to set a dog at me. Neither dog nor man liked the look of my stick, however, and the matter fell through. Relations were strained after that, and further inquiries out of the question.
— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The reflex of fear was soon replaced with another, more useful emotion.Rage.
— Tara Moss, Assassin
There is no mystery to happiness. Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn -- or worse, indifference -- cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man dies not look back. He doesn't look ahead. He lives in the present.
— Jed Rubenfeld, The Interpretation of Murder
I wrote that certain things were leaving me nauseated. I said that judges made me feel that way. Not most of them but all of them. I said that you for example, the judge I'm writing this to, made me feel nauseated. The nausea came from understanding that people produced by every conceivable advantage got to decide whether someone like Jalen lived or died and what was worse was they never fucking seemed to decide that the person should live, that a person's life, any person, was more important than whether some fat fuck at a country club thought you were hard enough on crime or whether you continue to get sufficient reelection campaign contributions you worthless retarded piece of shit. Why should you be allowed to decide anything beyond what you have for lunch you mental infant?
— Sergio de la Pava, A Naked Singularity
I [Lorna Craig] would say that teaching a girl that her salvation depends on her having sexual relations with a married man is inherently destructive." Such relationships, Craig argues bitterly, should be considered "a crime, not a religion.
— Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
Is it always in the interest of the public safety to seek the prosecutor's traditional solution -- the harshest penalty possible? Or is the public best served by finding ways to change a kid's lot in life for the better, even if that means opening the prison door?
— Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
Take a trip in my mindsee all that I've seen,and you'd be called abeast, not a human being...Fuck it, cause there'snot much I can do,there's no way out, myscreams have no voice nomatter how loud I shout...I could be called alow life, but life ain'tas low as me. I'm in juvenile hall headedfor the penitentiary. George Trevino, sixteen, "Who Am I?
— Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
It's not like they can take anything from me,' he says later, back with his homeboys in Juvenile Hall. 'Ain't got nothing to give. Nothin' but time, that is. And I been doin' time my whole life, one way or the other.
— Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
Locking everyone up is not the solution,' she sighs, staring into a cup of coffee gone cold as The Box at Juvenile Hall. 'It's just the symptom of the problem. It's the proof that we're doing something wrong.
— Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
False assurances were certainly more harmful than none at all.
— Chris Womersley, Bereft
...chance is sometimes a wonderful accomplice in crime.
— Émile Gaboriau, File No. 113
They do horrible, unchildish things because they they have had very horrible, unchildish lives.
— Edward Humes
(…)man holds the remedy in his own hands, and lets everything go its own way, simply through cowardice- that is an axiom.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
In the half-century of his life, a tick on the Doomsday clock, he had borne witness to the most unbelievable technological advances. He had started off listening to an old Bush radio in the corner of the living room and now he had a phone in his hand on which he could pretend to throw a scrunched-up piece of paper into a waste bin. The world had waited a long time for that.
— Kate Atkinson, Started Early, Took My Dog
These kids are already hard. They don't need to be made harder. The issue is softening them up. They need to learn how to care about life again. They've lost that. That's what we need to give back to them.
— Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
He wants to tell her that he is not hopeless, that he is not filled with hatred or violence, that he is not a number, a 300 or 600 or any hundred, but just a kid with no one and nothing, and who would do anything to make it otherwise. Just tell me how, he wants to scream. He wants to tell her what it's like to have the same dream night after night, that he's playing tag with his little sister, laughing, happy - then waking up and not knowing if the image in his head is a dim memory, or just something his mind cooked up to fill the black hole. Do you know what it's like to have no past? he wants to ask. And behind it all, like a ringing in his ears, is the question that really nags at him all the time, the one that has haunted him since he was six years old and his family evaporated. He wants to ask it, then and there and for good: What did I do wrong back then? What did I do to deserve this life?
— Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
the fundamental question Juvenile Court was designed to ask - What's the best way to deal with this individual kid? - is often lost in the process, replaced by a point system that opens the door, or locks it, depending on the qualities of the crime, not the child.
— Edward Humes, No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
It is fortunate for this community that I am not a criminal.
— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Bruce-Partington Plans
Clary felt suddenly annoyed. "When the self-congratulatory part of the evening is over, maybe we could get back to saving my best friend from being exsanguinated to death?""Exsanguinated," said Jace, impressed. "That's a big word.""And you're a big-""Tsk tsk," he interupted. "No swearing in church.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state....The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.
— Henry David Thoreau, I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau
I also never would have imagined I'd quote back a church lesson, but when the rest of the crowd stood up to take communion, I found myself saying to Dimitri: "Don't you think that if God can supposedly forgive you, it's kind of egotistical for you not to forgive yourself?""How long have you been waiting to use that line on me?" he asked."Actually, it just came to me. Pretty good, huh? I bet you thought I wasn't paying attention.""You weren't. You never do. You were watching me.
— Richelle Mead, Spirit Bound
Will-," Tessa began but it was too late, Church made a yowling noise at being woken, and lashed out with his claws. Will began to swear. Tessa left, unable to hide the slightest of smiles as she went.
— Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden
She gives me the finger and turns back around. "Did you see that?" I flinch at the gesture. "That is completely illegal in here.
— Addison Moore, Wicked
To be effective the preacher's message must be alive; it must alarm, arouse, challenge; it must be God's present voice to a particular people.
— A.W. Tozer
Saints cannot exist without a community, as they require, like all of us, nurturance by a people who, while often unfaithful, preserve the habits necessary to learn the story of God.
— Stanley Hauerwas
the Twelve Apostles are the most evident sign of Jesus' will regarding the existence and mission of his Church, the guarantee that between Christ and the Church there is no opposition: despite the sins of the people who make up the Church, they are inseparable. Therefore, a slogan that was popular some years back, 'Jesus yes, Church no,' is totally inconceivable with the intention of Christ. This individualistically chosen Jesus is an imaginary Jesus.
— Pope Benedict XVI, The Apostles: The Origin of the Church and Their Co-Workers
In a church of my own we're perfect togetherI recognize you in the stained glass
— Heather Nova, The Sorrowjoy
If we're going to impact our world in the name of Jesus, it will be because people like you and me took action in the power of the Spirit. Ever since the mission and ministry of Jesus, God has never stopped calling for a movement of "Little Jesuses" to follow him into the world and unleash the remarkable redemptive genius that lies in the very message we carry. Given the situation of the Church in the West, much will now depend on whether we are willing to break out of a stifling herd instinct and find God again in the context of the advancing kingdom of God.
— Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church
Fat Charlie wondered what Rosie's mother would usually hear in a church. Probably just cries of "Back! Foul best of Hell!" followed by gasps of "Is it alive?" and a nervous inquiry as to whether anybody had remembered to bring the stakes and hammers.
— Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
It's tucked away in a quiet corner, shadowed and obscured, no part of the Nightside's usual bright gaudy neon noir. It doesn't advertise and it doesn't care if you habitually pass by on the other side. It's just there for when you need it. Dedicated to the patron saint of lost causes, St. Jude's is an old old place... St. Jude's isn't a place for comfort for frills and fancies and the trappings of religion. just a place where you can talk to your god and sometimes get an answer.
— Simon R. Green, Agents of Light and Darkness
We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.
— Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church
In a short time a group of commissioners arrived to begin organization of a new Indian agency in the valley. One of them mentioned the advantages of schools for Joseph’s people. Joseph replied that the Nez Percés did not want the white man’s schools. “Why do you not want schools?” the commissioner asked. “They will teach us to have churches,” Joseph answered. “Do you not want churches?” “No, we do not want churches.” “Why do you not want churches?” “They will teach us to quarrel about God,” Joseph said. “We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that.
— Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
He cannot have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his mother.
— Augustine of Hippo
The Church was not left in this world to perfume the dung-heap of fallen humanity, but to take out, one by one, those who will be saved from the coming destruction.
— Donald Grey Barnhouse
There is no use trying to do Church work without love. A doctor, a lawyer, may do good work without love, but God's work cannot be done without love.
— Dwight L. Moody
In post-Christendom, the church is that community of people who look to discover what God is actively doing in the world around them and then join themselves to that work. The church is that community of people gathered around Jesus Christ in order to participate in his life and incarnate it into the context where he has placed them.
— Tim Keel, Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos
The church is like Noah's ark. It stinks, but if you get out of it, you'll drown.
— Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
The press was ruthless, but then so was the church.Flavia de Luce
— Alan Bradley, Speaking from Among the Bones
Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community
If Christianity was only about finding a group of people to live life with who shared openly their search for God and allowed anyone regardless of behavior to seek too and who collectively lived by faith to make the world a little more like Heaven would you be interested ’ ‘Hell yes ’ was his reply. He continued ‘Are there churches like that
— Hugh Halter & Matt Smay, The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community: The Posture and Practices of Ancient Church Now
Everybody gets to play.
— John Wimber, Power Evangelism
the church was an international institution long before globalization.
— Shane Claiborne
The church is missionary by nature because God through the Spirit calls, creates, and commissions the church to communicate to the world that the redemptive reign of God has broken into human history.
— Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit
The city takes a breath on Sunday. Of all that’s lost with the pursuit of what’s next, I hope we don’t lose that…
— Hawksley Workman, Hawksley Burns for Isadora
I think this is irresponsible preaching and very dangerous, and especially when it is slanted toward children, I think it's totally irresponsible, because I see nothing biblical that points up to our being in the last days, and I just think it's an outrageous thing to do, and a lot of people are making a living—they've been making a living for 2,000 years—preaching that we're in the last days.
— Charles M. Schulz, Charles M. Schulz: Conversations
It is a promise which eminently deserves our observation that all who are united to Christ and acknowledge Him to be Christ and Mediator will remain to the end safe from all danger, for what is said of the body of the Church belongs to each of its members since they are one in Christ.
— John Calvin
I find that I keep offering God my service when what He wants is my fellowship
— John Paul Warren
God’s downward descent to us in grace reversed by our upward ascent in pragmatic enthusiasm, we are increasingly becoming a sheep without a Shepherd—and all in the name of mission. Instead of churching the unchurched, we are well on our way to even unchurching the churched.
— Michael S. Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church
My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that is to say, Joe and I were going.
— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Fewer than half of churchgoers, including born-again Christians, felt strongly that their church demonstrates unconditional love.
— David Kinnaman, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters
The only group large enough to handle," the world's biggest, "problems is the network of millions of local churches around the world. We have the widest distribution, largest group of volunteers, local credibility, the promises of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the inevitability of history.
— Rick Warren
Spring came late. For the children, shut in the dark, cold parsonage, adjusting to Aunt and getting over the death that brought her, the winter had seemed endless. But now the rough moor was flecked with racing cloud shadows; the maltreated holly tree had stopped weeping; the green mould on the graves had dried to an unsuggestive grey.The church could never look cheerful. It was too black, and its voice, the bell, always said 'Fu - ner -al... fu - ner- al...' even when it was only calling them to hear one of their Papa's dramatic sermons.
— Lynne Reid Banks, Dark Quartet: The Story of the Brontës
I remind you that there are churches so completely out of the hands of God that if the Holy Spirit withdrew from them, they wouldn't find it out for many months
— A.W. Tozer, Tozer Pulpit
And off in the far distance, the gold on the wings of the angel atop the bell tower of San Marco flashed in the sun, bathing the entire city in its glistening benediction.
— Donna Leon, Death in a Strange Country
[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.
— James D. Watson
Organized Christianity that fails to make a disturbance is dead.
— G. Campbell Morgan
My point is, however, that churches do promote beliefs that would more appropriately find a place in a context of intellectual debate. They wind up cheerleading for highly dubious opinions on historical, scientific, and metaphysical matters, simply on the bases of emotional preference and the inertia of tradition. They demand conformity to these beliefs, and if you cannot swim with the current, then, well partner, maybe you'd be happier in another pool, another lake in fact, the one ablaze with burning sulfur.
— Robert M. Price
I sometimes wonder whether our churches--living as we do in American death-denying culture, relentlessly smiling through our praise choruses--are inadvertently helping people live not as much in hope as in denial.
— Mark Galli
It is not possible to understand the NT concept of the church if we overlook the numerous metaphors used to portray it. The church is Christ's body, a temple, a family, a royal priesthood, twelve tribes, the chosen race, Abraham's children, the new creation, the bride of Christ, and so on. Bible readers should be careful not to construct their theology of the church on a single metaphor.
— David Ewert, How to Understand the Bible
The lampstand was position strategically to do one things: cast its light on the table and on the bread that represented God's provision and presence. For generations the lampstand of the tabernacle stood to highlight the object that best represented God's goodness and provision, the same object that Jesus would one day use to symbolize His own body. (Jesus compares church to a lampstand in Revelation- a strong reminder of the church's responsibility). Everything about these churches 0 their teaching, practices, and work-- was challenged for one reason in Revelation: They were losing their effectiveness as God's light to their communities.
— Reggie Joiner, The Think Orange: Imagine the Impact When Church and Family Collide...
It is important to note that the lampstand in the tabernacle did not cast a broad light, illuminating everything in the tabernacle; the focus of its beam was specifically on the bread of presence. Likewise, the church is not called to illuminate everything -- its light should be concentrated on showing others who God is. For church leaders, our jobs are clear: we have to keep the wicks trimmed, the light burning, and the lampstand in its proper place. if the light begins to dim, we must immediately move into action. God's intention is for the church to be placed strategically in culture in order to show Himself to the world. Anytime the church becomes ineffective in its role to illuminate Christ, it must rekindle and reinvent itself around its core purpose.
— Reggie Joiner, The Think Orange: Imagine the Impact When Church and Family Collide...
Jesus said, " I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself," knowing that the nature of a forgiving Christ on the cross would compel people to follow Him. As long as the church remains an effective platform for God's light to reveal to the world the sacrifice Jesu samde, the church will be anturally irresistible. Light is inherently inviting-- just think of a porch light left on late into the night. Light communicates comfort, warmth, and healing. It gives direction and hope so we can see better and understand more fully. Most people I meet are looking for light. The problem is that the emphasis is of too many churches has gradually shifted and changed.
— Reggie Joiner, The Think Orange: Imagine the Impact When Church and Family Collide...
If the church is the body of Christ [who was disguised in servant form], why would we think the world would be able to pick us out of a crowd of other well-meaning organizations?
— Mark Galli, Chaos and Grace: Discovering the Liberating Work of the Holy Spirit
For his own unfathomable reasons, God chooses to disguise himself when he comes to this planet, and there have been few disguises better than the church.
— Mark Galli, Chaos and Grace: Discovering the Liberating Work of the Holy Spirit
To live [in the church] at the beck and call of marketing logic is to live in slavery.
— Mark Galli, Chaos and Grace: Discovering the Liberating Work of the Holy Spirit
Our musical artistry and leadership of people need to work together to create an environment that welcomes participation instead of causing disengagement.
— Gangai Victor
Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins.
— Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth
An historic institution, which never went right, is really quite much of a miracle as an institution that cannot go wrong.
— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
It's like this,' began the elder. 'All these sentences of hard labour in Siberian prisons, and formerly with flogging, too, do not reform anyone and, what's more, scarcely deter even one criminal, and, far from diminishing, the number of crimes are steadily increasing. You have to admit that. It therefore follows that society is not in the least protected, for though a harmful member is cut off automatically and exiled to some remote spot just to get rid of him, another criminal takes his place at once, and often, two, perhaps. If anything does protect society even today and indeed reforms the criminal himself and brings about his regeneration, it is, again, only the law of Christ, which reveals itself in the awareness of one's own consciousness. Only by recognizing his own guilt as a son of a Christian society, that is, of the Church, does the criminal recognize his guilt towards society itself, that is, towards the Church. The criminal today, therefore, is capable of recognizing his guilt only towards the Church, and not towards the State.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
The Church is Christ’s witness to the world of a loving savior and His redemptive plan for man.
— John Paul Warren
Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to take orders with a living, nor without?
— Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
Consistently, [Yves] Congar emphasized the distinction between Tradition and traditionalism. The latter was an unyielding commitment to the past. The former was a living principle of commitment to the Beginning, a process that required creativity, inspiration, and a spirit of openness to the present as well as respect for the past. Two of Congar's works, on reform in the church and on the theology of the laity, proved especially controversial...Congar believed that reform was a vital and necessary dimension of the church. This was rooted in the distinction between the church and the kingdom of God and in the intermingling in the church of both divine and human elements. In light of the church's constant temptation to revert to institutionalism, it was always necessary to allow room for the prophetic voice, issuing from the margins, even though this might mean attending to uncomfortable truths. 
— Robert Ellsberg, All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, & Witnesses for Our Time
Where everyone is accepted equally as a brother or sister in Christ, and where there is an open forum without a set program and format, believers will be in an environment where their gifts will develop and manifest naturally.
— Henry Hon, ONE: Unfolding God's Eternal Purpose from House to House
Where is Christ Jesus writings on the walls of the Church?
— Lailah Gifty Akita
The church, which squatted among the headstones like a wet mother dodo, had been at various times Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Unitarian, and Universally Apocalyptic. It was now the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., The Sirens of Titan
The church's primary purpose is not to make America more Christian, but to make American Christians less American and Rwandan Christians less Rwandan. We are no longer Rwandans or Americans, neither Hutu nor Tutsi. If we are in Christ, we have become part of a new creation.
— Emmanuel Katongole, Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith After Genocide in Rwanda
The story that the church has been telling for two thousand years is an outrageous tale about a man who was executed by the state but rose up from the dead. The crux of the story isn't that Jesus figured out the right answer to all the questions facing Israel in his day. What makes all the difference is that Jesus defeated the ultimate enemy and got up from the dead.
— Emmanuel Katongole, Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith After Genocide in Rwanda
We are called to be strange in the same way that the early Christian communities were strange to the world around them. The community in Antioch brought together Jews and Samaritans, Greeks and Romans, slaves and free, men and women in a way that was so confusing that people didn't know what to call them. So they called them "Christians." The only way they knew to describe their peculiar actions was to say that they were followers of an odd preacher from Galilee. The world is longing for such new and odd communities in our time. . . . I pray the time is now and that the resurrection might begin in us.
— Emmanuel Katongole, Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith After Genocide in Rwanda
In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.
— Ayn Rand, The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought