Christening Quotes

“Suppose we pick a name for him, eh?"
Caius Pompeius stepped over and eyed the child. "He looks a little like my proconsul, Marcus. We could call him Marcus."
Josiah Worthington said, "He looks more like my head gardener, Stebbins. Not that I'm suggesting Stebbins as a name. The man drank like a fish."
"He looks like my nephew Harry," said Mother Slaughter...
"He looks like nobody but himself," said Mrs.Owens, firmly. "He looks like nobody."
"Then Nobody it is," said Silas. "Nobody Owens.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“The women in the kitchen took turns making a fuss over the baby, acting like it was their job to keep her entertained until the Magi arrived. But the baby wasn't entertained. Her blue eyes were glazed over. She was staring into the middle distance, tired of everything. All this rush to make sandwiches and take in presents for a girl who was not year a year old.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“The women in the kitchen took turns making a fuss over the baby, acting like it was their job to keep her entertained until the Magi arrived. But the baby wasn't entertained. Her blue eyes were glazed over. She was staring into the middle distance, tired of everything. All this rush to make sandwiches and take in presents for a girl who was not yet a year old.”
― Ann Patchett

“...
Suddenly, your voice
Calling out my name.
I call yours.
The echoes take us
To the heart of the mountains.
When the silence closes,
You say: Now that they
Have called our names back
The mountains can
Never forget us.”
― John O'Donohue, Conamara Blues: Poems

“The oblong, one-layer cake was coated in powder-pink frosting. Around the sides of the cake the pink was decorated with white frills resembling lace. Both the top left corner and the bottom right corner of the upper surface were adorned with lilac roses and white rosebuds tipped with strawberry pink. And across the center of the cake, starting at the bottom corner on the left and sloping up towards the top corner on the right, was the baby's name in lilac cursive script: "Perfect.”
― Gaile Parkin, Baking Cakes in Kigali

“Sonnet of Holy Water

A new day starts with a new you,
And I ain't talkin' about born again nonsense.
A bigot baptized a thousand times is still a bigot,
A human helping another is Christ himself.
There is no second coming, there’s no reincarnation,
Except when we go from selfishness to kindness.
We are the messiahs and saviors of our people,
Nobody's gonna fall from the sky to lift the helpless.
The liquor store sells you the same divinity,
That the holy store sells you for even higher price.
We'll be born again when we abolish such divinity,
By baptizing the soil of society with our sacrifice.
The tears of joy someone sheds because of you,
Are the only holy water to build the world anew.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Handcrafted Humanity: 100 Sonnets For A Blunderful World

“On the day of the christening, Elizabeth, with Tomas by her side, carried her daughter, who was swathed in a lace robe, towards the priest who stood in the main hall. As she looked around the assembled guests, smiling, one in particular caught her eye and she stumbled, staggering with the baby in her arms.
Damien Chegwidden. She couldn't help but to be reminded of the tale of the bad fairy at the christening of Sleeping Beauty, a story that had fascinated her as a child. She had often wondered what it must be like to sleep for a hundred years and then wake to find a world utterly changed. Was his presence to be a bad omen for her daughter?”
― Kayte Nunn, The Botanist's Daughter

“The boy was duly christened, and in the process he started crying and pulled an awful face as if he were having premonitions that one day he might become a titular councillor.”
― Nikolai Gogol, Plays and Petersburg Tales