Bryan Lowe > Bryan's Quotes

“I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer."I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
There is no other stream," said the Lion.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

“Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. ”
― Michael Yaconelli

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
― Anne Lamott

“My mind is a neighborhood I try not to go into alone.”
― Anne Lamott

“You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“I liked those ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.' These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.”
― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“You can tell if people are following Jesus, because they are feeding the poor, sharing their wealth, and trying to get everyone medical insurance.”
― Anne Lamott

“It's better to be kind than to be right.”
― Anne Lamott

“It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.”
― Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.....We must not.....assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do, and more in light of what they suffer.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life...Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Take courage and confess your sin, says Luther, do not try to run away from it, but believe more boldly still. You are a sinner, so be a sinner, and don't try to become what you are not. Yes, and become a sinner again and again every day, and be bold about it. But to whom can such words be addressed, except to those who from the bottom of their hearts make a daily renunciation of sin and of every barrier which hinders them from following Christ, but who nevertheless are troubled by their daily faithlessness and sin? Who can hear these words without endangering his faith but he who hears their consolation as a renewed summons to follow Christ?”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“If you believe, take the first step, it leads to Jesus Christ. If you don't believe, take the first step all the same, for you are bidden to take it.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Who is pure in heart? Only those who have surrendered their hearts completely to Jesus that he may reign in them alone. Only those whose hearts are undefiled by their own evil--and by their own virtues too. The pure in heart have a child-like simplicity like Adam before the fall, innocent alike of good and evil: their hearts are not ruled by their conscience, but by the will of Jesus.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship