Staggering Quotes & Sayings

We are not imprisoned by circumstances, setbacks, mistakes or staggering defeats, we are freed by our choices. — James C. Collins

The musicals that leave us kind of staggering on our feet are the ones that really reach for a lot. — Lin-Manuel Miranda

The odds against an adoptee ending up as the child of the President of the United States are staggering. But then, so are the odds against a movie star becoming president. — Michael Reagan

Kenzie took two staggering steps backward, staring at the feeline as if in a daze. "O-kay," she breathed, shaking her head slightly. "A cat. A cat that talks. I'm going crazy." she glanced at me. " Or you slipped something into my drink at the tournament. One or the other. — Julie Kagawa

The statistics of mines that need clearance are staggering but the truth is it's a challenge that is absolutely doable. — David Knopfler

We realized that among us, among all the races, we had a staggering fund of knowledge and of techniques - that working together, by putting together all this knowledge and capability, we could arrive at something that would be far greater and more significant than any race, alone, could hope of accomplishing. — Clifford D. Simak

Sure, you can choose the safety and predictability of the cage, forfeiting the adventure God has destined for you. But you won't be the only one missing out or losing out. When you lack the courage to chase the Wild Goose, the opportunity costs are staggering. Who might not hear about the love of God if you don't seize the opportunity to tell them? Who might be stuck in poverty, stuck in ignorance, stuck in pain if you're not there to help free them? Where might the advance of God's kingdom in the world stall out because you weren't there on the front lines? — Mark Batterson

When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. — Joseph Heller

The number of Canadians providing or expecting to provide eldercare in need is already a staggering statistic. Baby boomers are aging and this figure is likely to grow substantially.The Caregiver's Guide for Canadians will provide you with valuable advice to help you provide good eldercare while balancing all the demands on your time. It provides practical, realistic guidance; encouragement and insights to help you care for elders in need. — Rick Lauber

Not everything has an answer. Alma found this to be such a staggering piece of intelligence that she was struck dumb by it for several hours. All she could do was sit and ponder the notion in an amazed stupor. — Elizabeth Gilbert

One night i rode home - it was a confession - and i came staggering across the yard and i fell into the rosebush and crawled up the stairs on my hands and knees and i was sick on the floor beside my bed. In the morning I tried to tell him I was sorry, and do you know what he said? 'Why, Tom, you were just jolly'. 'Jolly,' if I did it. A drunken man didn't crawl home. Just Jolly — John Steinbeck

Sometimes a book isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
Sometimes it's the only story you knew how to tell. — Tahereh Mafi

Most animals, including most domesticated primates (humans) show truly staggering ability to 'ignore' certain kinds of information - that which does not 'fit' their imprinted/ conditioned reality-tunnel — Robert Anton Wilson

After Rep. Martin Sweeney of Ohio delivered a scathing attack on the Roosevelt administration for allegedly using conscription as a way to get the United States into the war, Rep. Beverly Vincent of Kentucky, who was next to Sweeney, loudly muttered that he refused "to sit by a traitor." Sweeney swung at Vincent, who responded with a sharp right to the jaw that sent Sweeney staggering. It was, said the House doorkeeper, the best punch thrown by a member of Congress in fifty years. — Lynne Olson

The impact was so abrupt that those who were standing were suddenly hurled forward, staggering like drunkards while they tried to regain their balance. — Rob Mundle

If communist unions ever gain a position to exercise influence in the transport lanes of the world, the free world will have suffered a staggering blow. — Robert Kennedy

You are staggering beneath a weight which your Father would not feel. What seems to you a crushing burden, would be to him but as the small dust of the balance ... Come, then, soul! have done with fretful care, and leave all thy concerns in the hand of a gracious God.
from Morning 1-6 — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A man learns to skate by staggering about and making a fool of himself. Indeed he progresses in all things by resolutely making a fool of himself. — George Bernard Shaw

Sat in the Jacuzzi last night looking at the dark recesses of the nozzles. Remembering the story I wrote about spiders nesting there. Multifaceted eyes watching me watching them, almost like when you set two mirrors parallel to each other, accept this infinity ends up in some fuzzy creature's belly. I have a nice picture of a Hobo spider in my backyard, venom dripping off one of those nasty fangs of theirs. Son of a bitch is looking at me and his mouth is watering waiting for me to stick my hand under the rock he's nested in. I hate it when you spray a spider with insecticide and it curls up for a few minutes, then uncurls and staggers home. I'm like an arachnid cheap date that sucks!!
I just picture the spider staggering into the nest and the female spider asking, "Is that Raid I smell on you?"
The spider just smiles (interesting thing to picture) and passes out. — Neil Leckman

I'm living as an artist, and that's a staggering feeling, it's a total luxury. And because you have this amazing chance, with so much freedom, I'm determined to make something that is worth that. I feel this responsibility - to create something that makes an audience feel, which takes them somewhere. But that's very hard to achieve. — Conor McPherson

In the next few years, there will be a staggering turn in world events! A giant Asian superpower, with a modernized Russia and China at the helm, will dramatically affect the course of history. This emerging power bloc - a conglomerate of peoples which comprise one fourth of the world's population - will be deeply involved in the tumultuous tide of events that will lead to the conclusion of mankind's 6,000 years of self-rule! How can we know this? — Stephen Flurry

Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired pills or tuftlets on each new edge! It is a staggering conception, showing an age-transforming feel for the unique properties of pulped wood fiber. — Nicholson Baker

I think of him now, ragged and lost, staggering across a desert, the path behind him littered with all the shiny little pieces that life has ripped from him. — Khaled Hosseini

The first thing you notice about women in Hollywood, besides their low percentage of body fat, is how few are married. And the number of great-looking, successful single women without a social life is staggering ... The most glaring misconception about Hollywood is that it is the romance capital of the world. — Lynda Obst

Saw a film on cancer yesterday, shown by the English delegation. No doubt about it. I'm right. "Migratory cancer cells" are amoebic formations. They are produced from disintegrating tissue and thus demonstrate the law of tension and charge in its purest form - as does the orgastic convulsion.
Now money is a must - cancer the main issue - in every respect, even political.
It was a staggering experience. My intuition is good. I depend on it. Was absolutely driven to buy a microscope. The sight of the cancer cells was exactly as I had previously imagined it, had almost physically felt it would be. Cancer is an autoinfection of the body, of an organ. And researchers have no idea of what, hor, or where!! — Wilhelm Reich

Josh grins. "Just give me your hand."
"W-what?"
"Your hand," he repeats. "Give it to me."
I extend my shaking right hand. And-in a moment that is a hundred dreams come true-Joshua Wasserstein laces his fingers through mine. A staggering shock of energy shoots straight into my veins. Straight into my heart.
"There," he says. "I've been waiting a long time to do that."
Not nearly as long as I've been waiting. — Stephanie Perkins

One of the greatest obstacles to escaping poverty is the staggering cost of higher education. — Chris Van Hollen

Every page should explode, either because of its staggering absurdity, the enthusiasm of its principles, or its typography. — Tristan Tzara

I think one of the most shocking things is how little our elected officials knew about what the NSA was doing. Congress is learning from the reporting and that's staggering. Snowden and [former NSA employee] William Binney, who's also in the film as a whistleblower from a different generation, are technical people who understand the dangers. — Laura Poitras

If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. — Paul McCartney

The present, due to its staggering complexities, is almost as conjectural as the past." - George Jackson "Dawn also has its terrors." - Victor Hugo "America is our country, more than it is the whites' ... we have enriched it with our blood and tears." - David Walker "My love to all who love their neighbors." - John Brown — Terry Bisson

In a capitalist society, persons who create capital, like Michael Eisner, are given the staggering rewards. — Carroll O'Connor

I keep staggering forward because I have to, but what Linden said last night is true: It's not much of a plan. — Lauren DeStefano

My men and women are loyal and will fight to the bloody end," he said, his broad shoulders holding the weight of a staggering number of lives, "but I'm afraid I am about to lead them into certain death. — Nalini Singh

In the depths of his tiredness, surrounded by these blank, sheep-like visages, he found himself pondering the accidents that had brought all of them into being. Every birth was, viewed properly, mere chance. With a hundred million sperm swimming blindly through the darkness, the odds against a person becoming themselves were staggering. — Robert Galbraith

You don't believe me?" Jace asked. "Fine. Go ahead. Kiss me right now."
Alec stared at him in horror.
"Exactly. Despite my staggering good lucks, you actually don't like me that way. — Cassandra Clare

...he plundered the living treasure of those shelves. There was Burton's marvelous Anatomy, his staggering erudition never smelling of the dust or of the lamp...There was the dark tremendous music of Sir Thomas Browne, and Hooker's sounding and tremendous passion made great by genius and made true by faith. — Thomas Wolfe

For all the feminist jabber about women being victimized by fashion, it is men who most suffer from conventions of dress. Every day, a woman can choose from an army of personae, femme to butch, and can cut or curl her hair or adorn herself with a staggering variety of artistic aids. But despite the Sixties experiments in peacock dress, no man can rise in the corporate world today, outside the entertainment industry, with long hair or makeup or purple velvet suits. — Camille Paglia

Justification has so dominated the landscape of Christian thought that adoption has been marginalized. We don't hear much about our adoption at all. We hear a lot about forgiveness, but very little about the staggering reality of our inclusion in Jesus' relationship with his Father in the Spirit. — C. Baxter Kruger

The emotion I'd held back for years assaulted me with staggering intensity. Everything. All of it. I cried for Clay, for the lost years with Courtney, but most of all for myself and the cowardly person I'd become. They were right. I was a shell of who I used to be and lived a lonely little life. I'd been certain that protecting my heart had been the right way to go. That Courtney and I didn't mix in the long term. That love was not for me. I'd been wrong on all counts. — Melissa Brayden

Later we can go to dinner."
"I suppose that might work," she said.
She sounded so damn casual, he thought. As if the decision she had just made weren't staggering in its implications. As if it weren't going to alter destinies and change the fate of nations. — Jayne Ann Krentz

The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made their living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being nonexistent persons. — George Orwell

The amounts of money in Silicon Valley are staggering. — Alec Berg

I know I'm not going to say good-bye. And if these staggering refugees want to help, if they think they see something bigger here than a boy chasing a girl, then they can help, and we'll see what happens when we say yes while the rigor mortis world screams no. — Isaac Marion

The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud. — George Steiner

It is staggering that God should love sinners, yet it is true. — J.I. Packer

Cicero gave an account of a party attended by a certain Quintus Gallius, a friend of Catilina, which evokes the raffish atmosphere of his circle. There are shouts and screams, screeching females, there is deafening music. I thought I could make out some people entering and others leaving, some of them staggering from the effects of the wine, some of them still yawning from yesterday's boozing. Among them was Gallius, perfumed and wreathed with flowers; the floor was filthy, soiled with wine and covered with withered garlands and fish bones. — Anthony Everitt

The Bible's was an unlikely, movie-set world alongside our world. Light-shot and translucent in the pallid Sunday-school watercolors on the walls, stormy and opaque in the dense and staggering texts they read us placidly, sweet-mouthed and earnest, week after week, this world interleaved our waking world like dream. — Annie Dillard

An oil crisis looms, prices are spiking - and our president is extolling algae. After Solyndra, Keystone and promises of seaweed in their gas tanks, Americans sense a president so ideologically antipathetic to fossil fuels - which we possess in staggering abundance - that he is utterly unserious about the real world of oil in which the rest of us live. — Charles Krauthammer

He hurried back. Walls seemed to shift and advance. Right here, it must be. Wasn't this passage too short? No, it wasn't a wall that blocked his way, only fog. The fog retreated before him - then at once yielded up a wall. Staggering crimson letters caught in the web of graffiti spelled KILLER. — Ramsey Campbell

There was an aura about him that was staggering to her, making it difficult to think. It wasn't mere male heat and sensuality. It was raw sexuality, animalistic in its intensity - and she was starving for it. — Kresley Cole

The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering. — Winnie Byanyima

Even with the recent story about the nurse killing herself in King Edward Hospital, there's no blame placed on Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital as far as I could see for absolutely no reason. She feels no shame about the death of this woman, she's saying nothing about the death of this poor woman. The arrogance of the British royals is staggering, absolutely staggering. And why it's allowed to be I really don't know ... It wasn't because of two DJs in Australia that this woman took her own life, it was the pressure around her. — Steven Morrissey

Her death didn't feel real yet. Nona stood there, casting no shadow, and found she could feel nothing for her friend. Some emotions are like that, too big to be seen from within, like the ice patterns, written across empty miles, which make sense only from a great height. She slumped, staggering as weariness caught up with her. She would find that distance in time, and there would be sorrow enough to make the dead weep, and she feared it. — Mark Lawrence

Ivan Fyodorovich had long been feeling an intense hatred for him, before he even thought about him, and suddenly he became aware of him. He at once felt an irresistible desire to bring his fist down on the little peasant. Just at that moment they came abreast of each other, and the little peasant, staggering badly, suddenly lurched full force into Ivan. The latter furiously shoved him away. The little peasant flew back and crashed like a log against the frozen ground, let out just one painful groan: "O-oh!" and was still. Ivan stepped up to him. He lay flat on his back, quite motionless, unconscious. "He'll freeze!" Ivan thought, and strode off again to Smerdyakov. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Rather than turning away from the staggering scale and depth of misery caused by war, we must strive to develop our capacity to empathize and feel the sufferings of others. — Daisaku Ikeda

Frazzled and delirious, as I've just finished a new book of stories. I feel like Moses staggering down the mountainside with the tablets of stone. — Kevin Barry

What I can't understand is why you can't see the extraordinary beauty of the idea that life started from nothing - that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something so messy as a God? — Richard Dawkins

Dying venture firms are like the walking dead. They can have years of staggering around with stakes in still active portfolio companies, hoping they're still holding a lottery ticket that could put them back in the game. If not, they just slowly wind down. — Sarah Lacy

If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible - but there it is. — Robert W. Hemphill

(Second kiss)
Only a kiss?
It was staggering.
Her mind was lost to time and place, as if nothing existed beyond his divine mouth. He discarded her bonnet and tangled his fingers in her hair. She whimpered, clutching at his lapels, yet he refused to relent. Mercilessly, he intensified the kiss, pulling her so far in; submerging her in so much sensation
that Mary thought she would drown in the pleasure of it. — Victoria Vane

It's a staggering transition for high school students that found they could study five hours a week and make As and Bs. — John W. Gardner

Despite my staggering good looks, you actually don't like me that way ... (Jace) — Cassandra Clare

The stories my pupils told me were astonishing. One told how he had witnessed his cousin being shot in the back five times; another how his parents had died of AIDS. Another said that he'd probably been to more funerals than parties in his young life. For me - someone who had had an idyllic, happy childhood - this was staggering. — Erin Gruwell

Sometimes our arms are so full with the burdens we carry that it hinders our view of the load those around us are staggering beneath. — Richard Paul Evans

Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. — R. Buckminster Fuller

The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry. — Henry Petroski

Just look at that Forbes 400. Takes a billion three to get on the Forbes 400 this year. And the aggregate wealth is just staggering. And those people are paying less percentage of their total income to the federal government than their receptionists are [ ... ] I'll bet a million dollars against any member of the Forbes 400 who challenges - me that the average for the Forbes 400 will be less than the average of their receptionists. — Warren Buffett

We have at most ten years - not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions ... We are near a tipping point, a point of no return, beyond which the built in momentum and feedbacks will carry us to levels of climate change with staggering consequences for humanity and all of the residents of this planet. — James Hansen

Marlowe grinned. That so? I couldn't disagree more. Is that Nietzsche talking? Ah, the Germans. We have a factory in Germany, you know. Actually, Germany is a fine example, so let's take Germany: They were crushed in the Great War. Their debt was staggering. A pound of bread cost nearly three billion Marks! The Reichsmark was practically worthless - you'd have better luck papering your house with it than trying to buy goods or pay your bills. But Marlowe Industries is going to help them get on their feet. We're going to change the world. — Libba Bray

In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations ... If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa ... the independence movement in India ... ) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world. — Walter Wink

A life best lived is a life by design. Not by accident, and not by just walking through the day careening from wall to wall and managing to survive. That's okay. But if you can start giving your life dimensions and design and color and objectives and purpose, the results can be staggering. — Jim Rohn

The righteous will surround me, for you will deal bountifully with me" (v. 7). Here is staggering confidence in God! No matter what the wicked plot and how powerful they are, God is greater and he will deliver. Is this not the heart of the message of the gospel itself? No matter how great is our opponent - which, among other things, includes the sin and guilt of our own lives - God is greater, and his provision more fully revealed in Jesus Christ for our deliverance cannot fail. In Christ we know that the righteous will surround us, that God will deal bountifully with us. In Christ, we are invincible. — Anonymous

The direct and indirect medical costs of low-back pain (LBP) are staggering. In 1991 it was reported that these costs equaled somewhere between $50 and $100 billion per year in the United States, with more recent studies showing these costs increasing. — Whitney W. Lowe

Remember: It costs nothing to encourage an artist, and the potential benefits are staggering. A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, or the cartoon you love to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever. — Kevin Smith

These numbers are staggering, in fact incomprehensible. By all accounts, we are dealing with the greatest health crisis in human history. — Nelson Mandela

Emma's heart was pounding. She chanced a look up at Julian. For the briefest of moments he looked like someone who'd been staggering through the Mojave Desert, half-dead from the sun, and had seen a glimmer of water up ahead only to have it turn out to be a mirage. "Still no Mark?" Emma said hastily as Cristina reached them. Not that there was a real reason Cristina would know where Mark was; Emma just didn't want her looking at Julian. Not when he looked like that. — Cassandra Clare

Yes, aging can be tough and rough ... But it is possible to approach the ultimate without staggering and even with a kind of glow, like a radiant sunset. — Norman Corwin

God as a helpless baby, he could only lie, stare, wriggle, make noises. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets! — J.I. Packer

Like many alcoholics, I was a staggering woman in a chic apartment, sick and utterly disgusting. — Mercedes McCambridge

Staggering to her feet, Ceony stomped her shoe down on the hand twice before it stopped moving. She stomped it twice more for insurance. — Charlie N. Holmberg

THE STAGGERING QUESTION "He said to me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?'" Ezekiel 37:3 Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer - "O Lord God, You know" (37:3). — Oswald Chambers

They say we have weak wills. Do you know about the two drunks who went to the film of The Lost Weekend. Came out staggering. "My God I'll never take another drink," said the first. "My God I'll never go to another movie." How's that for commitment? — John Berryman

Chick-lit may be staggering on its heels, but women's fiction is alive and kicking. — Jojo Moyes

Earlier in this century, the Heisenberg Principle established that the very act of observing a natural phenomenon can change what is being observed. Although the initial theory was limited in practice to special cases in subatomic physics, the philosophical implications were and are staggering. — Al Gore

Our romantic options are unprecedented and our tools to sort and communicate with them are staggering. And that raises the question: Why are so many people frustrated? — Aziz Ansari

There's no blame placed at Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital for, as far as I can see, absolutely no reason ... She feels no shame about the death of this woman. The arrogance of the British royals is staggering, absolutely staggering. — Steven Morrissey

On one planet [earth], and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter. — Richard Dawkins

Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God. — Frederick Buechner

ECONOMIC IMPACT - The United States buys almost three quarters of a trillion dollars ($738,000,000,000.00) more from overseas suppliers than it sells in exports (balance of trade deficit). Overall, the US buys about $ 2.5 trillion dollars in goods and services produced by the other nations of the world every year. With the United States gone as the world's economic engine, the remaining nations of the world will, in varying degrees, immediately suffer from staggering financial depression. The financial credit crisis that started in mid-September, 2008 in the United States, soon reverberated in stock markets across the world. — John Price

A fundamental mistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong man ... A man who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no right man. — Thomas Carlyle

The mad sometimes drilled holes in their own heads to let the demons out. To relieve the pressure of thoughts they could no longer bear. Jude understood the impulse. Each beat of his heart was a fresh and staggering blow felt in the nerves behind his eyes and in his temples. Punishing evidence of life. — Joe Hill

When you start with legal holiness, you have eyes only for the cross, and you never see that in Jesus Christ, nothing less than the eternal trinitarian life of Father, Son and Spirit is being lived out inside human existence. You never really get the staggering meaning of the incarnation. — C. Baxter Kruger

The most staggering linguistic turnabout for me is the one that equates green economy with 'sustained economic growth.' — Tim Jackson

The number of possible "on-off" patterns of neuronal firing is immense, estimated as a staggering ten times ten one million times (ten to the millionth power). The brain is obviously capable of an imponderably huge variety of activity; the fact that it is often organized and functional is quite an accomplishment! — Daniel J. Siegel

If you think about it, we get robbed of the mystery of being alive. I think we get robbed of the glory of it because we don't remember how we got here. When you get born, you wake up slowly to everything. From birth to 26, God is slowly turning on the lights, and you are groggy and pointing at things, and say "Circle," and, "Blue,", and, "Car," and, "Sex," and then, "Job," and, "Healthcare". The experience is so slow, you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. Life IS staggering, and we are just too used to it. — Donald Miller

If I were to believe in a god l would believe in gods. I think monotheism is the really ghastly thing. That is the absolutely staggering to me misapprehension. — Stephen Fry

Several devices he has to draw souls to sin, and several plots he has to keep souls from all holy and heavenly services, and several stratagems he has to keep souls in a mourning, staggering, doubting and questioning condition. He has several devices to destroy the great and honorable, the wise and learned, the blind and ignorant, the rich and the poor, the real and the nominal Christians. — Thomas Brooks

You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. It's staggering how you jump straight the hell into the heart of a matter. I'm goosebumps all over ... By God, you inspire me. You inflame me, Bessie. You know what you've done? Do you realize what you've done? You've given this whole goddam issue a fresh, new, Biblical slant. I wrote four papers in college on the Crucifixion - five, really - and every one of them worried me half crazy because I thought something was missing. Now I know what it was. Now it's clear to me. I see Christ in an entirely different light. His unhealthy fanaticism. His rudeness to those nice, sane, conservative, tax-paying Pharisees. Oh, this is exciting! In your simple, straightforward bigoted way, Bessie, you've sounded the missing keynote of the whole New Testament. Improper diet. Christ lived on cheeseburgers and Cokes. For all we know he probably fed the mult - — J.D. Salinger

What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given - it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral. — Donald Miller