William T. Vollmann Quotes
Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the pretense that life is what we want it to be may conceivably bring about the desired condition. Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?William T. Vollmann
Quotes to Explore
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I just see religious freedom, as a category, as just being a black hole.
Gary Johnson -
I'm a religious man. I pray for Milky Way.
Forrest Mars, Jr. -
Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of judging for yourselves if you go to America. There you will find men treating women with just the same respect formerly accorded only to religious dignitaries or to great nobles.
Lafcadio Hearn -
My mother taught me a lot of things, but they had big presuppositions built in – like her expectation that I'd be a missionary nurse in a religious order.
Faye Wattleton -
Obviously, you don't have to be religious to be moral, and beastly people are sometimes religious.
Gary Hamel -
I am proud of religious Zionism. I am proud of the members of religious Zionism because it is a true ideological public.
Naftali Bennett
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The greatest preventative to terrorism is Muslim religious literacy.
Hamza Yusuf -
I went to church as a kid, but it was as much a social thing as anything going to the youth group with the other kids and whatnot. It wasn't until I got out of college that I got on my own religious trip and started finding other things out there as well as philosophies. I've kinda been on my own spiritual path since then.
Bailey Chase -
Every religious tradition is rooted in mysteries I don't pretend to understand, including claims about what happens after we die. But this I know for sure: as long as we're alive, choosing resurrection is always worth the risk.
Parker Palmer -
When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.
Barry Goldwater -
It is brilliant going to the theatre and being forced to sit and listen and think about life. It can be almost a near-religious experience.
Emily Mortimer -
Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.
Emile Durkheim
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You will notice that the Occupy Wall Street crowds - and the progressives who support them - focus on bringing the wealthy down to earth rather than lifting the 99 percent. They have a nearly religious belief that too much wealth is fundamentally immoral and unhealthy for society.
David Harsanyi -
I don't know if I'm the most religious guy, but I think I'm a spiritual man, and these are the things I think about a lot. In terms of the film, I think 'The Grey' is very much a non-denominational kind of film. I don't think it's something that relies on a particular religious bent to tell the story.
Joe Carnahan -
The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.
Dave Barry -
Syria is the proud heir of an ancient civilization that has a unique spectrum of minorities that encompasses Muslims and Christians of various denominations. There are at least ten such ethnic and religious groups.
Ahmed Zewail -
More and more people care about religious tolerance as fewer and fewer care about religion.
Alexander Chase -
The Left has always been anti-religious, and especially anti-Christian.
Dennis Prager
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My religious point of view is something I can't talk about. It goes against my belief system to talk publicly about my own spiritual beliefs.
John Frusciante -
I do not believe in genetic causes; I am miles away from there. I believe rather that all people who embrace our european values, our laws and our constitution are full members of our society.
Geert Wilders -
When I play with the full band, you get to be larger than life, you feel larger than life, and that particular moment in the song where there's passion, you've got nine guys behind you, all driving that sound and that feeling with you. That's like surfing a huge wave, because once you start you really can't stop it, you got it going down a huge mountain.
Jason Mraz -
The New York Times reports that Moammar Gadhafi spent his last days hovering between defiance and delusion, surviving on rice and pasta. In other words, Gadhafi spent his last days as a sophomore in college. That's what I did.
Conan O'Brien -
Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the pretense that life is what we want it to be may conceivably bring about the desired condition. Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?
William T. Vollmann