#h

Come on, it’s an American tradition. Apple soup? Mom’s homemade chicken pie?' She chuckled in spite of herself, then winced. 'It’s apple pie and Mom’s homemade chicken soup. But you didn’t do badly, for a start. ↗

— L.J. Smith

#damon #elena #fiction #paranormal #romance

Perversity is the human thirst for self-torture. ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#horror

The world outside had its own rules, and those rules were not human. ↗

— Michel Houellebecq

#reality #horror

Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. "I swear it," he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw. ↗

— Madeline Miller

#happiness #heroes #love #mythology #oaths

The sooner we all learn to make a decision between disapproval and censorship, the better off society will be....Censorship cannot get at the real evil, and it is an evil in itself. ↗

— Granville Hicks

#censorship

God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"? there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites; causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#christ #cross #god #love #love

We are one now, little brother, you and I," Sebastian said. "We are one. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#cliffhanger #jace-lightwood #jonathon-morgenstern #meanest-ending-in-history #sebastian-verlac

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder ‘censorship,’ we call it ‘concern for commercial viability. ↗

— David Mamet

#genius #mamet #censorship

People aren't confused bythe Gospel. They're confused by us. Jesus is the only way to God, but we are not the only way to Jesus. This world doesn't need my tie, my hoodie, my denomination or my interpretation of the Bible. They just need Jesus. We can be passionate about what we believe, but we can't strap ourselves to the Godspel, because we are slowing it down. Jesus is going to save the world, but maybe the best thing we can do is just get out of the way. ↗

— Casting Crowns

#gospel

The world needs to see Christians burning, not with self-righteous fury at the sliding morals in our country, but with passion for God. ↗

— Kevin DeYoung

#culture #gospel #moralism #gospel