Whitney > Whitney's Quotes

“It is wrong, in this age of necessary decisions, to bully people into decisions that are neither genuine nor necessary.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Love Letters From Cell 92

“All that matters is whether one opts for Christ - not Christian opinions.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Love Letters From Cell 92

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”
― C.S. Lewis

“In theory, the idea of eternity in heaven singing God’s praises sounds really good, but when I realize I have to go through the death part to get there, I’m not quite so enamored with the idea.”
― Kim Hunt Harris, Middle Finger of Fate

“You, sir, are an idiot! Your father was an idiot! Your grandfather was an idiot! And while I’ve never met your great grandfather, I’m sure that he was an idiot too since idiocy like yours is so incredibly vast that it can’t possibly be due to just the environment. It would need a strong genetic determinant since no environment could ever produce an idiot as big as you!”
― L.G. Estrella, The Galactic Peace Committee

“A woman’s mission centered on home and family — vital spheres of ministry to be sure, but only a slice of the vast mission God originally cast by calling women to rule and subdue the earth.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories

“We view men’s gifts as vital to the church. In contrast, we caution women to exercise their gifts discreetly to avoid causing problems or trespassing some invisible line — which changes location from church to church, sometimes even within the same denomination.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories

“Jesus won the war, and the rest of history is simply mopping up.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories

“The noble calling to rule and subdue the earth in God’s name was perverted, as male and female tried to rule and subdue each other.”
― Carolyn Custis James, Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories

“I won’t desecrate beauty with cynicism anymore. I won’t confuse critical thinking with a critical spirit, and I will practice, painfully, over and over, patience and peace until my gentle answers turn away even my own wrath.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“We’ll stand before the piles of stones that used to be weapons, and we’ll build an altar.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“The line between sacred and secular is man-made.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“Christian feminists can celebrate any sort of feminism that brings more justice and human flourishing to the world, no matter who is bringing it, since we recognize the hand of God in all that is good.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“There is no more hateful person than a Christian who thinks you’ve got your theology wrong.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“And now for me, faith is less of a brick edifice of belief and doctrine and right answers than it is a wide-open sky ringed with pine trees black against a cold sunset, an altar, a welcome, bread and wine, an unfathomably ferocious love, and a profound sense of my belovedness.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“People want black-and-white answers, but Scripture is rainbow arch across a stormy sky.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: God's Radical Notion that Women Are People Too

“I want you to wrestle with the Bible. Do it. Wrestle until, Jacob-like, you walk with a limp ever after, and you receive the blessing of the Lord.”
― Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women

“It can't last forever. Others have thought such things, in bad times before this, and they were always right, they did get out one way or another, and it didn't last forever. Although for them it may have lasted all the forever they had.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“Evolution means letting go of our false fundamentals so that God can get into those shadowy places we’re not sure we want him to be. It means being okay with being wrong, okay with not having all the answers, okay with never being finished.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions

“Doubt is a difficult animal to master because it requires that we learn the difference between doubting God and doubting what we believe about God. The former has the potential to destroy faith; the latter has the power to enrich and refine it. The former is a vice; the latter a virtue.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions

“For the children of Israel, the essence of religion was experiencing God to the fullest during this lifetime, not merely preparing for the next.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions

“Those who say that having childlike faith means not asking questions haven't met too many children.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions

“I was a fundamentalist because my security and self-worth and sense of purpose in life were all wrapped up in getting God right — in believing the right things about him, saying the right things about him, and convincing others to embrace the right things about him too. ... I was a fundamentalist not because of the beliefs I held but because of how I held them: with a death grip.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions

“I would argue that healthy doubt (questioning one's beliefs) is perhaps the best defense against unhealthy doubt (questioning God). When we know how to make a distinction between our ideas about God and God himself, our faith remains safe when one of those ideas is seriously challenged.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions

“I don't know which Bible stories ought to be treated as historically accurate, scientifically provable accounts of facts and which stories are meant to be metaphorical. I don't know if it really matters so long as those stories transform my life.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions

“Every good Christian knows that the best way to insulate yourself from criticism or input is to say that God wants whatever you want.”
― Rachel Held Evans, Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions

“The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.”
― William Shakespeare, Othello

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all unless you repute yourself such a loser.”
― William Shakespeare, Othello

“If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!”
― William Shakespeare, Othello