Ex Priest James Quotes & Sayings

The prompt Paris morning struck its cheerful notes - in a soft breeze and a sprinkled smell, in the light flit, over the garden-floor, of bareheaded girls with the buckled strap of oblong boxes, in the type of ancient thrifty persons basking betimes where terrace-walls were warm, in the blue-frocked brass-labelled officialism of humble rakers and scrapers, in the deep references of a straight-pacing priest or the sharp ones of a white-gaitered red-legged soldier. He watched little brisk figures, figures whose movement was as the tick of the great Paris clock, take their smooth diagonal from point to point; the air had a taste as of something mixed with art, something that presented nature as a white-capped master-chef. The — Henry James

We are an unfortunate priest-ridden race and always were and always will be tell the end of the chapter ... A priest-ridden Godforsaken race. — James Joyce

The pinafore of the child will be more than a match for the frock of the bishop and the surplice of the priest. — James Martineau

Jews are accused of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it. (...) The priest spells poverty (...) It's in the dogma. Because if they didn't believe they'd go straight to heaven when they die they'd try to live better, at least so I think. (...) I want to see everyone, all creeds and classes having a comfortable tidysized income. I call that patriotism." (526) — James Joyce

To work is nothing; the king on his throne, the priest kneeling before the Holy Altar, all people in all places had to work, but no person at all need be a servant. — James Stephens

Molly reached over and patted my shoulder. "It's OK, sweetie. I'm a lesbian." "That's it. I definitely want myself a new priest," Choo said. "Episcopalians will let anybody in," Molly agreed. "It's all the drinking that goes on at our conferences. Half the time when our bishops are raising their hands to vote, they think they're ordering another scotch. — Elliott James

Faith is a viewpoint? That sounds strange coming from the lips of a priest. — James Targett

[A writer is] a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life. — James Joyce

Had he, during the course of his ministry, changed a single life? He recalled the words of a woman overheard when he was leaving his last parish. 'Father Martin is a priest of whom no one ever speaks ill.' It seemed to him now the most damning of indictments. (p. 243). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. — P.D. James

The duties of the priest towards the Eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them; and I was not surprised when he told me that the fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office Directory and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. — James Joyce

Sometimes such simple acts, which could not be rushed and took up a fixed amount of necessary time, were a respite from more lasting uncertainties and preoccupations. If he could concentrate more upon such manageable tasks (making this cocoa, looking after his wife, feeding his child, or teaching his dog to fetch a ball) then ideas, and even solutions, might come unbidden; thoughts that could make him a better priest, a kinder husband, — James Runcie

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, We bargain for the graves we lie in; Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold ... 'T is heaven alone that is given away, 'T is only God may be had for the asking; There is no price set on the lavish summer, And June may be had by the poorest comer. — James Russell Lowell

I have just read a long novel by Henry James. Much of it made me think of the priest condemned for a long space to confess nuns. — W.B.Yeats

But then, he continued, the idea of duality was also at the heart of Christianity. You had to be both a man and a Christian, and if there was ever a conflict between the two then it was his duty as a priest to put his acquired identity, as a man of faith, above his own essential nature. Sidney — James Runcie

He would never swing the thurible before the tabernacle as priest. His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders. The wisdom of the priest's appeal did not touch him to the quick. He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world. — James Joyce

The lunatic populism that preceded the Pearl Harbor bombing is astonishing in its permutations, its crisscrossings. Guys like [Catholic priest and controversial radio broadcaster] Father Coughlin and [racist and anti-Semitic agitator and founder of the Christian Nationalist Crusade] Gerald L.K. Smith started out as share-the-wealth socialists. — James Ellroy

When John O'Malley was a Jesuit novice, an older priest told him three things to remember when living in community: First, you're not God. Second, this isn't heaven. Third, don't be an ass. — James Martin

I decided to give up the idea of being a priest before I decided I wanted to be an actor. I considered it for a couple of weeks, really. I'm a young Catholic, do you know what I mean. You're going to consider it. — James McAvoy

The voice sounded calm and sweet, but for the first time James felt scared. "It must be bad," he thought. "If they're like sending for a priest or something they must think I'm gonna die."
Ten minutes later James' parents were standing over him and his mother was gently stroking his face. "Are you in pain, Jimmy?" she asked.
"Yes, I need something, but they won't give me anything."
James' dad tried to sound authoritative as he spoke, "You're just fine. They have to do a little surgery to repair your leg, but you're just fine, son. — Joyce Swann

I'm a mean mother-hmmnhmmnh man of God," she informed me. "Except that I'm a woman, of course."
"You just quoted something, didn't you?" I asked.
"Yes, I did," Molly agreed. She seemed calm but her heart was beating fat. "From Dusk Till Dawn. Its a vampire movie with George Clooney."
"Is it too late to get a different priest?" Choo wondered. "Like maybe one who quotes The Bible? — Elliott James

Here's a joke about discernment: A woman asks her local priest for advice. "Father," she says, "I have a little boy who is six months old. And I'm curious to know what he will be when he grows up." The priest says, "Place before him three things: a bottle of whiskey, a dollar bill, and a Bible. If he picks the bottle of whiskey, he'll be a bartender. If he picks the dollar bill, a business man. And if he picks the Bible, a priest." So the mother thanks him and goes home. The next week she returns. "Well," said the priest, "which one did he pick: the whiskey, the dollar bill, or the Bible?" She says, "He picked all three!" "Ah," says the priest, "a Jesuit! — James Martin

Be thou of Zen. Remember, in tranquillity, that the Absolute, the Tao, is within thee, that no priest or cult or dogma or book or saying or teaching or teacher stands between Thou and It. Know that Good and Evil are irrelevant, I and Thou irrelevant, Inside and Outside irrelevant as are Life and Death. Enter into the Sphere where there is no fear of death nor hope of afterlife, where thou art free of the impediments of life or the needs of salvation. Thou art thyself the Tao. Be thou, now, a rock against which the waves of life rush in vain. — James Clavell

One good thing is that I've been following the priest's orders to meditate on how I've hurt people. It's helped me recognize that we can't help but make mistakes, even when our intentions are good. — James Patterson

Did man e'er live Saw priest or woman yet forgive? — James Russell Lowell

I considered becoming a priest very seriously. I wanted to travel the world. By the time I turned 16, I realized I was only in it for selfish reasons. And, more importantly, I didn't want to sacrifice the ladies! — James McAvoy

Sidney was beginning to feel uncomfortable. As a priest he was used to informal confession, but he could never quite reconcile himself to the fact that it often contained quite a lot of detail. There were times when he wished people wouldn't tell him so much. — James Runcie

God's penis would still rank high among those vistas a priest and a nun could not comfortably share. — James K. Morrow

It's hopeless," Jordan looked at the priest, "It's too hard--the fight, I mean."
Father James said, "Hopelessness is never an issue, understand? — Cathrina Constantine

Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch knelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her hat sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? Corpus: body. Corpse. Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They don't seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it. — James Joyce

But the new priest in town, this Father Ybarra, who had come north to see if the missions should be closed down, absolutely forbade her to step foot inside Santa Teresa: "This place is not for women. If God had intended you to enter these precincts, he would have made women friars. — James A. Michener