Angeline Joseph

“Anyway, the reason I hate communion isn't the meat-eating component. I get hungry enough, I'll eat anything. The reason I hate it is because everybody in the church except me, Jason Bock, stands up and gets in line for their little snack. I sit there alone in the pew while everybody stares at me as they file past. I sit there and burn under hellfire and damnation stare my father gives me. And I feel awful. But what choice do I have? According to Father Haynes, if a nonbeliever takes Holy Communion, he'll be damned for all eternity. Of course, being a nonbeliever damns me anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter, but I figure it's safer not to partake. Just in case I'm wrong about the whole God thing.
So I sit and endure the stares and the pangs and twinges of Catholic guilt, knowing that I am doing the right thing if I'm right, and the right thing even if I'm wrong.

Being Catholic is hard. Being ex-Catholic is even harder.”
― Pete Hautman, Godless

“I once read a short story about some cannibals who didn't turn their victims into steaks and chops and roasts; they made them all into sausages. Because when you're eating a sausage you don't think so much about what you're eating. It's the same with communion wafers.
..........
My point is, the miracle of the Holy Communion is when the priest turns these little white disks into the flesh of Jesus Christ. They call it transubstantiation. So, if you buy that, then the host the priest places on your tongue is actually a silver of Jesus meat. But they make the host as different from meat as they can, so even though communion is a form of cannibalism, nobody gets grossed out. Like with the sausages.”
― Pete Hautman, Godless

“No matter how much I tell myself that the fat and the stretch marks don't matter, they do. Even if Bo, for whatever reason, doesn't care, I do.

Then there are days when I really give zero flying fucks, and I am totally satisfied with this body of mine. How can I be both of those people at once?”
― Julie Murphy, Dumplin'

“Every time I blink, all I can see are my flaws. My body in a fun-house mirror. Hips too wide. Thighs too big. And a head too small for the rest of me.”
― Julie Murphy, Dumplin'