Get close enough to someone and his or her halo slips--not because they're bad, but because they're mortal.
I make you believe that I am racist ... so you wouldn't suspect that I had sex with your best friend.
How to run an ultramarathon ? Puff out your chest, put one foot in front of the other, and don't stop till you cross the finish line.
Harboring bitterness against people is actually confessing their sin to myself, over and over again. Anger is akin to confessing their sin to God, dissatisfied that he hasn't done something and placing myself in his position as judge.
To be fair to the Inquisition, they only used confessions extracted after the torture had ended, which let them claim that admissions had been freely given; the fact that the torture would have started again if they hadn't confessed was a minor detai...
There is no requirement that police stop a person who enters a police station and states that he wishes to confess a crime or a person who calls the police to offer a confession because volunteered statements of any kind are not barred by the 5th Ame...
If you have never been tortured, or locked up and verbally threatened, you may find it hard to believe that anyone would confess to something he had not done. Intuition holds that the innocent do not make false confessions.
If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.
Somebody is born. Somebody goes to school. Somebody learns to conform. Somebody types a CV. Somebody gets a job. Somebody follows orders. Somebody gets a golden watch. And then, eventually, Somebody dies. And, a Nobody is buried.
Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves.
I can think of few better ways to introduce a child to books than to let her stack them, upend them, rearrange them, and get her fingerprints all over them.
My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves.
-our father used to tell us stories about a bookworm named Wally. Wally, a squiggly little vermicule with a red baseball cap, didn't merely like books. He ate them.
I, on the other hand, believe that books, maps, scissors, and Scotch tape dispensers are all unreliable vagrants, likely to take off for parts unknown unless strictly confined to quarters.
I had so much respect for the fact that Father Andrew saw his own sins in my actions. I wished all adults were like Father Andrew.
Some women bristle, in certain contexts, at being called female: it seems to focus exclusively on the reproductive system, and makes you feel like a chicken, all thighs and breasts.
I don't even like turkey. It's dry and weird. And so leggy I feel like I'm dining on Rhonda Burchmore
A sailor chooses the wind that takes the ship from a safe port. Ah, yes, but once you're abroad, as you have seen, winds have a mind of their own. Be careful, Charlotte, careful of the wind you choose.
Confession is for the confessor. It makes you feel good; it ruins the lives of everyone else. It’s a selfish thing to do. Don’t confess.
Christ became our Brother in order to help us. Through him our brother has become Christ for us in the power and authority of the commission Christ has given him. Our brother stands before us the sign of the truth and the grace of God. He has been gi...
(M)uch as we might imagine we can leave the past behind, it has a nasty way of pressing its hoary old face against the window just as we were sitting down to the feast.
