Prodded Quotes & Sayings

If you're an introvert, you also know that the bias against quiet can cause deep psychic pain. As a child you might have overheard your parents apologize for your shyness. Or at school you might have been prodded to come "out of your shell" -that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and some humans are just the same. — Susan Cain

Politicizing of kids starts with pregnancy, of course. You shouldn't be drinking wine. You can't be smoking, either. The poor woman is poked and prodded and touched and obsessed over. — Sam Mendes

The mace prodded
Will in the back again. That little habit was starting to annoy him and he was tempted to take the weapon from the sergeant major and do a little prodding of his own. — John Flanagan

She wanted to slap herself for showing weakness around him. "Why?" he prodded. "Why what?" she snapped. "Why me?" "I was asking myself the same question." "The wide-eyed act won't work with me, cara." "I am not - " "I won't marry you. If that's what you're after, forget it. Not happening." "I'm after what?!" she spluttered. She was at a loss for words. "It takes more than a cherry to make me cough up a wedding ring, " he said with thinly veiled derision. "You should've done your homework. Marriage? Not in my cards. — Kat Madrid

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded. — Charlie Chaplin

He shrugged. "I was ... thinking."
"About what?"
"The fires of purgatory."
She had to sit down. He wasn't making any sense now. "What does that mean?" she asked.
"Patrick told me he would walk through the fires of purgatory if he had to in order to please his wife."
She went over to the bed and sat down on the side. "And?" she prodded when he didn't continue.
He stripped out of his clothing and walked over to her. He pulled her to her feet and stared down to her.
"And I have only just realized I would do the same for you. — Julie Garwood

Maybe I'll keep you." Abbot chuckled and prodded Artemis's back with his sword. "It'd be nice to have a pet human around. I could teach you tricks."
"I have a trick for you," said Artemis, and he fired a single blast from the gun. — Eoin Colfer

I had started trying - it for the first time, really - it to remember what had happened in that wood. I prodded tentatively around the edges of it, barely acknowledging even to myself what I was doing, like a kid picking at a scab but afraid to look. — Tana French

Who has stopped worshiping us?"
"Everyone in the old world," April said little harshly.
"But of course they have, young woman. We left, didn't we? We came to Everworld. How can you expect people to worship a God they can't see from time to time?"
"Yeah April," Jalil prodded, failing to suppress a smirk. "How can you? — K.A. Applegate

The shaman helps you figure it out. I already know what I'm going to be."
I prodded him in the ribs. He couldn't just leave me hanging like that.
"A speech therapist." he said.
The whole world could have stopped. I wouldn't have noticed.
Rafael gave me an unusually stoic look. "I'm going to get your voice back someday," he said. "I though that was obvious. — Rose Christo

Way back when I was four, I became increasingly sickly and spiritless. My mother took me to the doctor, who poked and prodded and deliberated. In the end, he pronounced, "She's depressed." Depressed at four years old. Why? No one had an answer....I have long evaded the real reasons for my discontentment. I still can't tell what they are, precisely, but I feel their presence most acutely in moments like this one with my grandmother, imagining a day in a big-box store that had replaced an old farm. — Alisa Smith

I bit my lip. "I, well, we were high? Really,really high. And it was this weird cloud and lightning and faerie thing. I didn't know where it was taking me or why,and I was so scared I did the only thing I could think of."
"Which was?" Lend prodded, worry shadowing his face.
I shrugged, a small, guilty gesture. "I took some." Hating the concern in his eyes,I rushed on. "Only a little bit-not enough to hurt it,really, just enough to surprise it, and then we fell, and it tried to drop me, but I grabbed on and some trees broke my fall. And afterward the Cloud Freak was okay,really,it was. Just kind of pissed. And then it flew off."
I didn't mention the erratic flight pattern. It was probably woozy. — Kiersten White

When my world gets reset to zero, my starting post is blood. Specifically, the elements of it, the working compounds that make it what it is. Red cells, white cells, DNA, plasma full of proteins, enzymes, antibodies, minerals, electrolytes - all the things that when poked and prodded right tell you just about everything you want to know about a person. Fascinating stuff, and a little freaky, when you think about it. Blood was where I returned to after the accident that smashed my knee. It was where I went when I got out of prison. It was where I was when Mercy fell into my lap. Now it seemed, blood was my whole reason for being. — L.J. Hayward

We are all what we are, in large degree, because of others who have helped, coached, taught, counseled, who set a standard by example, who've taken an interest in our interests, opened doors, opened our minds, helped us see, who gave encouragement when we needed it, who reprimanded or prodded when we needed it, and at critical moments, inspired. — David McCullough

America is not going to be destroyed " he shouted passionately.
"Never?" prodded the old man softly. "Well ... " Nately faltered.
The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. "Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so."
Nately squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, forever is a long time, I guess. — Joseph Heller

Wolf?" Cinder prodded. He sniffed again and his eyes brightened. Then he was gone - hurling himself past the group and tearing open the front door. Cinder jumped to her feet. "Wolf! What are you - " Too late. The door slammed shut behind him. She cursed. This was not the time for her mutant wolf ally to start running around and drawing attention to himself. She — Marissa Meyer

You think I'm shallow?" Millie patted his arm again. "You're a gentleman of society, Everett. You're bound to be a little . . . Well, I wouldn't say you're shallow, not exactly, but you are a bit of a snob, something I do think I've pointed out before. Having said that, Lucetta and I both know you're not used to being seen in public with ladies like . . . us." Tightening his grip on their arms, Everett prodded them forward. "There's nothing wrong with either one of you, and just so you know . . . I've recently come to the conclusion that I might very well be a snob, but I'm trying to work on that." Not giving the ladies an opportunity to balk, Everett increased his pace, practically dragging them beside him as he moved through the door and into the entranceway. — Jen Turano

Ron's ears turned bright red and he become engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe 'he must've known I'd run out on you'.
'No', Harry corrected him, 'He must've known you'd always want to come back — J.K. Rowling

In managing our transport systems, our governments must constantly negotiate the paradox of mass movement. They must create a system which, for the sake of speed and efficiency, treats us like a herd, constantly prodded and coralled, divided, re-formed and forced into line. At the same time it must grant us the illusion of autonomy. — George Monbiot

I remembered my mother's insistence that I always wear clean underwear because I might get knocked down by a car on the way to or from school and I and the family would be disgraced even beyond the grave, presumably, if my underwear was dirty. And I began to worry, in fact, as the doctor sniffed and prodded, about the state of the shorts I was wearing. This made me want to laugh. But I could not breathe. — James Baldwin

Arthur prodded the mattress nervously and then sat on it himself: in fact he had very little to be nervous about, because all mattresses grown in the swamps of Sqornshellous Zeta are very thoroughly killed and dried before being put to service. Very few have ever come to life again. — Douglas Adams

Wylan cleared his throat. "The chemistry is complicated. I was hoping Kuwei would help."
Nina said something to Kuwei in Shu. He shrugged and looked away, lip jutting out slightly. Whether it was the recent death of his father or the fact that he'd found himself stuck in a cemetery with a band of thieves, the boy had become increasingly sullen.
"Well?" Jesper prodded.
"I have other interests," Kuwei replied.
Kaz's black gaze pinned Kuwei like the tip of a dagger. "I suggest rethinking your priorities."
Jesper gave Kuwei another nudge. "That's Kaz's way of saying, 'Help Wylan or I'll seal you up in one of these tombs and see how that suits your interests.' "
Matthias was no longer sure what the Shu boy understood or didn't, but apparently he'd received the message. Kuwei swallowed and nodded grudgingly.
"The power of negotiation," Jesper said, and shoved a cracker in his mouth. — Leigh Bardugo

I had not laid a finger on the boy's head. I have never poked or prodded either a baby or a child, so why did I feel so dirty? Part of it was just my makeup, the deep-seated belief that I deserve a basement room, but a larger, uglier part had to do with the voices I hear on the talk radio, and my tendency, in spite of myself, to pay them heed. The man in the elevator had not thought twice about asking Michael personal questions or about laying a hand on the back of his head. Because he was neither a priest nor a homosexual, he hadn't felt the need to watch himself, worrying that every word or gesture might be misinterpreted. He could unthinkingly wander the halls with a strange boy, while for me it amounted to a political act - an insistence that I was as good as the next guy. — David Sedaris

There, as usual, she found her husband asleep in the flickering light of MTV. She knelt by the sofa and laid her hand gently on his chest. "Hey," she whispered. "Who's it gonna be? Me or Pat Benatar?" He stirred, rubbing his eyes with the knuckles of his forefinger. "Well?" she prodded. "I'm thinking. — Armistead Maupin

He has been mad for you these many months, ever since you prodded him in the nether regions with a hedgehog. — Gail Carriger

The fact is that camels are far more intelligent than dolphins. They are so much brighter that they soon realised that the most prudent thing any intelligent animal can do, if it would prefer its descendants not to spend a lot of time on a slab with electrodes clamped to their brains or sticking mines on the bottom of ships or being patronized rigid by zoologists, is to make bloody certain humans don't find out about it. So they long ago plumped for a lifestyle that, in return for a certain amount of porterage and being prodded with sticks, allowed them adequate food and grooming and the chance to spit in a human's eye and get away with it. — Terry Pratchett

No one had Ramsey's patience, Brodick thought to himself. Gideon obviously didn't know his laird well, for if he did, he would have known that under that thin layer of civility and diplomacy beat the heart of a savage warrior whose temper put Brodick's to shame. Unlike Brodick, Ramsey was slow to ignite, but once he had reached his limit or had been prodded too far, his reaction was explosive and most impressive. He could be far more brutal than Brodick, and perhaps that was one of the reasons they had become such good friends. They trusted each other. Aye, Brodick trusted and admired Ramsey as much as he trusted and admired the man who had trained them to be leaders, Iain Maitland. — Julie Garwood

Anyone who says that life matters less to an animal than it does to us has not held in his hands an animal fighting for its life. The whole of the being of the animal is thrown into that fight, without reserve. When you say that the fight lacks a dimension of intellectual or imaginative horror, I agree. It is not the mode of being animals to have an intellectual horror: their whole being is in the living flesh ... I urge you to walk, flank to flank, beside the beast that is prodded down the chute to his executioner. — J.M. Coetzee

I will persist until I succeed. I was not delivered into this world into defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. I will persist until I succeed. — Og Mandino

A memory rises: Etienne was in a field east of the city with his brother. It was the summer when fireflies showed up in Saint-Malo, and their father was very excited, building long-handled nets for the boys and giving them jars with wire to fasten over the tops, and Etienne and Henri raced through the tall grass as the fireflies floated away from them, illuming on and off, always seeming to rise just beyond their reach, as if the earth were smoldering and these were sparks that their footfalls had prodded free. — Anthony Doerr

He studied the nail-formation, and prodded the finger-tips, now sharply, and again softly, gauging the nerve-sensations produced. It fascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle flesh of his that worked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately. Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn expectantly about him, and like a blow the realization would strike him that this wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more than so much meat... — Jack London

Coherently democratic authority carries the conviction that true discipline does not exist in the muteness of those who have been silenced but in the stirrings of those who have been challenged, in the doubt of those who have been prodded, and in the hopes of those who have been awakened. — Paulo Freire

Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia. — William Zinsser

I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. — Og Mandino

You're color blind, Jean Louise," he said. "You always have been, you always will be. The only differences you see between one human and another are differences in looks and intelligence and character and the like. You've never been prodded to look at people as a race, and now that race is the burning issue of the day, you're still unable to think racially. You see only people. — Harper Lee

Knock, knock."

Johnny raised his eyebrows impatiently, waiting for her to continue.

"You're supposed to say, 'Who's there?'" Maggie prodded.

"Who's there?" Johnny parroted.

"Sarah." She waited. "Say Sarah who."

"Sarah who?" Johnny droned.

"Sarah reason you're not lettin' me in?"

Johnny rolled his eyes, and Maggie giggled a little — Amy Harmon

Who freed the slaves? To the extent that they were ever u2018freed,' they were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which was authored and pressured into existence not by Lincoln but by the great emancipators nobody knows, the abolitionists and congressional leaders who created the climate and generated the pressure that goaded, prodded, drove, forced Lincoln into glory by associating him with a policy that he adamantly opposed for at least fifty-four of his fifty-six years of his life. — Lerone Bennett Jr.

New York had saved him, in a very real way. It had pushed and prodded him with its impatient and sharp fingers, reminding him on a daily basis during that jittery first year that it didn't really give a goddamn whether he sank or swam.
He liked its selfishness and its generosity and its propensity for flipping the bird to the rest of the world. — Nora Roberts

Everyone has the pushed and prodded and tugged look that rich people have, like they're just giant pieces of taffy, ready to be molded. — Lauren Oliver

She was the only doctor's wife in Branford, Maine, who hung her wash on an outdoor clothesline instead of putting it through a dryer, because she liked to look out the window and see the clothes blowing in the wind. She had been especially delighted, one day, when one sleeve of the top of her husband's pajamas, prodded by the stiff breeze off the bay, reached over and grabbed her nightgown around the waist. — Lois Lowry

He stood and inhaled, then walked a few more feet, stooped, and prodded a chunk of rabbit fur.
"I'm definitely thinking something with more body parts," I said. "Like a head."
He gave a snort of a laugh. "It's probably around here somewhere, but I suppose you want the parts attached, too. — Kelley Armstrong

And, what's more, this 'precious' body, the very same that is hooted and honked at, demeaned both in daily life as well as in ever existing form of media, harrassed, molested, raped, and, if all that wasn't enough, is forever poked and prodded and weighed and constantly wrong for eating too much, eating too little, a million details which all point to the solitary girl, to EVERY solitary girl, and say: Destroy yourself. — Emilie Autumn

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod. — Winston S. Churchill

Each time someone laughed, each time Annie elbowed me or Rafael prodded me or Aubrey asked me, wheedling slightly, to take his side in an argument, I had this feeling of floating on air, miles and miles above the clouds. Each laugh was like a song I'd always wanted to learn without ever realizing I didn't already know it. Each laugh was a new experience on its own, and yet a familiar one, and I felt that I should be thanking someone for it, but I didn't know who. — Rose Christo

When Sweetu wasn't being reduced to merely existing as a bride, as a piece of meat to be handled and prodded, to have decorative contraptions stuck into her skull, her interests were otherwise unexpressed. She rarely complained, hardly asked for anything, and maybe that's because Indian girls grow up going to weddings and we watch the procedure and we know our roles: be demure, don't complain, cry but don't scream, get tea for anyone older than you, and calmly meet expectations. — Scaachi Koul

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley ... He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: To Harry Potter - the boy who lived! — J.K. Rowling

O sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked thee ,has the naughty thumb of science prodded thy beauty .how often have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing and buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive gods (but true to the incomparable couch of death thy rhythmic lover thou answerest them only with spring) — E. E. Cummings

At the turn of the century, parishioners attacked vaudeville as a sinful venture. Organized boycotts adversely affected ticket sales. Benjamin Franklin Keith's wife was deeply religious and prodded her husband to follow church directives. Comedian Fred Allen said, 'Mrs. Keith instigated the chaste policy, for she would tolerate no profanity, no suggestive allusions, double-entendres or off-color monkey business. — Kliph Nesteroff

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

In the case of my husband, we found that facing a life-threatening illness prodded us to make a dramatic change in our lives. — Gail Sheehy

Whoa. Fangs. She had fangs. She leaned in, prodded them a little. Eating with those puppies was going to take some getting used to, she thought. On impulse, she brought up her hands, turned her fingers into claws. Hissed. Cool. — J.R. Ward

Sheldon entered the living room with Jenna's son, John
"What'd we miss?" Sheldon asked with a smile.
While Seth and David abandoned the group, all eyes went from Sheldon to Tracy to Sheldon to Tracy and back to Sheldon again.
It was like watching a tennis match.
And poor Tracy ...
Lisette had never seen her look so stricken.
"Well?" Sheldon prodded, when no answer came.
Sean cleared his throat. "Tracy's been having sex dreams about you."
Krysta swatted her brother on the back of the head. — Dianne Duvall

She did not listen to the voices of the men behind her. She did not know for how long the broken snatches of their struggle kept rolling past her - the sounds that nudged and prodded one another, trying to edge back and leave someone pushed forward - a struggle, not to assert one's own will, but to squeeze an assertion from some unwilling victim - a battle in which the decision was to be pronounced, not by the winner, but by the loser. — Ayn Rand

Sometimes listening itself may not be enough-some people must be prodded if you are to find out what they're thinking. — Mary Kay Ash

In 1966, Gregg Hill took the world's laziest summer job. First he was poked and prodded and had his fitness assessed by every technique then known to medicine. Then, for 20 days, he and four other student volunteers became the ultimate couch potatoes, confined to bed - not even allowed to walk to the toilet. The goal was to investigate how astronauts would respond to space flight, but when Hill and his fellows finally staggered to their feet, their drastic deterioration helped spark a revolution in medical care here on Earth. As Rick A. Lovett explains, before the experiment took place, bed rest was recommended for people with weak hearts. Afterward, doctors knew that it made them worse. — Jeremy Webb

It's not always so easy," she said softly.
"Why not? It's a part of who you are, isn't it?" he asked with all the sympathy of an asp being prodded with a stick. — Page Morgan

The Pension Dressler stood in a side street and had, at first glance, the air rather of a farm than of a hotel. Frau Dressler's pig, tethered by one hind trotter to the jamb of the front door, roamed the yard and disputed the kitchen scraps with the poultry. He was a prodigious beast. Frau Dressler's guests prodded him appreciatively on the way to the dining-room, speculating on how soon he would be ripe for killing. The milch-goat was allowed a narrower radius; those who kept strictly to the causeway were safe, but she never reconciled herself to this limitation and, day in, day out, essayed a series of meteoric onslaughts on the passers-by, ending, at the end of her rope, with a jerk which would have been death to an animal of any other species. One day the rope would break; she knew it, and so did Frau Dressler's guests. — Evelyn Waugh

Tyranny is increasingly unsustainable in this post-cold-war era. It is doomed to failure. But it must be prodded to exit the stage with a whimper - not the bang that extremists long for. — Eskinder Nega

In the first two decades of this century, people and their political leaders, prodded by the quisling scientists, acted as though they could enjoy the benefits of modern science while rejecting any scientific findings that they found inconvenient to their ideology or their pocketbook. — James Lawrence Powell

No," I said. "You're not a Yankee imperialist?" she prodded. "Certainly not," I told her. "I come from Ireland." "Holland," she said, frowning. "No, — Valerie Hemingway

Silence fell between the two couples. Even the Storian faltered, unsure who was defending who anymore. "Don't mind me," Rafal prodded, smiling. "Who needs a villain when you three have each other? — Soman Chainani

There were gasps and cries of surprise as they saw Alecto lying there unconscious. Slowly they shuffled in around her, a savage beast that might wake at any moment and attack them. Then one brave little first-year darted up to her and prodded her backside with his big toe. "I think she might be dead!" he shouted with delight. "Oh, look," whispered Luna happily, as the Ravenclaws crowded in around Alecto. "They're pleased! — J.K. Rowling

We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if, as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often that we care to remember. What else is there to guide us? Those values are our inheritance, what makes us who we are as a people. And although we recognize that they are subject to challenge, can be poked and prodded and debunked and turned inside out bu intellectuals and cultural critics, they have proven to be both surprisingly durable and surprisingly constant across classes, and races, and faiths, and generations. We can make claims on their behalf, so long as we understand that our values must be tested against fact and experience, so long as we recall that they demand deeds and not just words. — Barack Obama

I could feel the urgency in the driver's voice as he prodded the horses to greater momentum. The rumble of thunder could be heard rolling through the mountains as foreboding dark clouds rolled overhead obscuring the starry sky. The sun vanished with one last glimmer through the pine trees, then night took possession of the earth. — Rhiannon Frater

For all I know, you look different by sunlight," Cameron prodded.
"I'm actually a blond," Julian deadpanned. — Abigail Roux

Erm.. dear, do I ride out for Apocalypses?' Mrs War took the lid off the saucepan and prodded viciously at something inside. 'No, dear,' she said firmly. 'You always come down with a cold. — Terry Pratchett

I've been poked and prodded in places I'd always prided myself on keeping untouched for that one special doctor who gives me a ring and a promise someday. — Libba Bray

Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I see the infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of liberty means all. The common people will let it go, oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be prodded, prodded-. — Anthony Burgess

Jean Louise was accustomed to her uncle's brand of intellectual shorthand: it was his custom to state one or two isolated facts, and a conclusion seemingly unsupported thereby. Slowly and surely, if prodded correctly, Dr. Finch would unwind the reel of his strange lore to reveal reasoning that glittered with a private light of its own. — Harper Lee

I was in and out of the hospital almost daily from then on.
They X-rayed, poked, and prodded me, and then they did it again for good measure. — Bear Grylls

I'm going out, remember?" I prodded. "And I'm going to drink too much, which makes me horny. Don't forget to take your vitamins, ace. — Sylvia Day

Or at school you might have been prodded to come "out of your shell" - that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same. — Susan Cain

As consumers of culture, we are lulled into passivity or, at best, prodded toward a state of pseudo-semi-self-awareness, encouraged toward either the defensive group identity of fanhood or a shallow, half-ironic eclecticism. Meanwhile, as citizens of the political commonwealth, we are conscripted into a polarized climate of ideological belligerence in which bluster too often substitutes for argument. There is no room for doubt and little time — A.O. Scott

I wrote about the person I love most, my older brother, Noah. We don't live together so I wrote what I imagine he does when we're not together."
"And what is that?" prodded the stout man.
"He's a superhero who saves people in danger, because he saved me and my brother from dying in a fire a couple of years ago. Noah is better than Batman." The crowd chuckled.
"I love you, too, lil'bro. — Katie McGarry

When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening. — George Orwell

I get mailings from Amnesty International, and as I look at their photos of men and women who have been beaten and cattle-prodded and jabbed and spit on and electrocuted, I ask myself, "What kind of human being could do that to another human being?" Then, I read the book of Acts and meet the kind of person who could do such a thing, now an apostle of grace, a servant of Jesus Christ, the greatest missionary history has ever known. If God can love that kind of person, maybe, just maybe, He can love the likes of me. — Philip Yancey