Lent Quotes

Apart from the pleasure of looking at her and listening to her
of enjoying in her what others less discriminatingly but as liberally appreciated
he had the sense, between himself and her, of a kind of free-masonry of precocious tolerance and irony. They had both, in early youth, taken the measure of the world they happened to live in: they knew just what it was worth to them and for what reasons, and the community of these reasons lent to their intimacy its last exquisite touch. ~ Edith Wharton

Curiously enough, it seems that at times the spiritual side prevails, and then the materialistic side - in wave-like motions following each other. ...At one time the full flood of materialistic ideas prevails, and everything in this life - prosperity, the education which procures more pleasures, more food - will become glorious at first and then that will degrade and degenerate. Along with the prosperity will rise to white heat all the inborn jealousies and hatreds of the human race. Competition and merciless cruelty will be the watchword of the day. To quote a very commonplace and not very elegant English proverb, "Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost", becomes the motto of the day. Then people think that the whole scheme of life is a failure. And the world would be destroyed had not spirituality come to the rescue and lent a helping hand to the sinking world. Then the world gets new hope and finds a new basis for a new building, and another wave of spirituality comes, which in time again declines. As a rule, spirituality brings a class of men who lay exclusive claim to the special powers of the world. The immediate effect of this is a reaction towards materialism, which opens the door to scores of exclusive claims, until the time comes when not only all the spiritual powers of the race, but all its material powers and privileges are centered in the hands of a very few; and these few, standing on the necks of the masses of the people, want to rule them. Then ~ Swami Vivekananda

Inherent power you possess as part of yourself. Granted power is lent or given by other people. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
Man were immortal and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

No one has taken my heart in their hand. I haven't given it ... I have lent myself, rented myself out, but never given myself. ~ Sylvia Kristel

To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow; Counting on morrows breedeth bankrupt sorrow: O squander not this breath that Heaven hath lent thee; Make not too sure another breath to borrow. ~ Omar Khayyam

Thus on Easter we celebrate Christ's Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and to live by it. It is a gift which radically alters our attitude toward everything in this world, including death. It makes it possible for us joyfully to affirm: "Death is no more!" Oh, death is still there, to be sure and we still face it and someday it will come and take us. But it is our whole faith that by His own death Christ changed the very nature of death, made it a passage - a "passover," a "Pascha" - into the Kingdom of God, transforming the tragedy of tragedies into the ultimate victory. "Trampling down death by death," He made us partakes of His Resurrection. This is why at the end of the Paschal Matins we say: "Christ is risen and life reigneth! Christ is risen and not one dead remains in the grave! ~ Alexander Schmemann

Hazel, watching, lent help here and there and encouraged the others. ~ Richard Adams

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'

Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever - which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.

("The Three Strangers") ~ Thomas Hardy

Furthermore, we should keep all things only as if they had been merely lent and not given to us, without any sense of possessiveness, whether it be our body or soul, our senses, faculties, worldly goods or honour, friends, relations, house or home or anything whatsoever. ~ Meister Eckhart

A king is a mortal god on earth, unto whom the living God hath lent his own name as a great honour; but withal told him, he should die like a man, lest he should be proud, and flatter himself that God hath with his name imparted unto him his nature also. ~ John Locke

The irony is that what was supposed to be a great vulnerability of Hillary Clinton , which the Iraq war vote which she has acknowledged was a terrible mistake, has lent an aura of strength in a funny way. ~ Joe Conason

The four-week period of Advent before Christmas - and the six-week period of Lent before Easter - are times of penance and life change for Christians. In our book The Last Week, we suggested that Lent was a penance time for having been in the wrong procession and a preparation time for moving over to the right one by Palm Sunday. That day's violent procession of the horse-mounted Pilate and his soldiers was contrasted with the nonviolent procession of the donkey-mounted Jesus and his companions. We asked: in which procession would we have walked then and in which do we walk now? ~ Marcus J. Borg

The season of Lent is puzzling to many. Denying ourselves our favorite treats or habits - even for a short time - seems archaic in our I-want-it-now culture. Lent is a plodding, definitive crescendo that leads up to the cacophonous noise of Good Friday and the gorgeous aria of Easter. It's a season marked by deliberateness and intentionality. ~ Anonymous

Miss Marshall was wearing a ghastly green gown, one that had no doubt been lent to her by a friend. It fit rather poorly, gaping at the bosom and stretching at the hips. The color dimmed the fire of her hair - which, without her normal pins, refused to stay in place. Little strands made an auburn halo around her head.
He'd never seen anything quite so lovely. ~ Courtney Milan

I get so bummed when I have to return the clothes I'm lent. It's easy to feel so special, but like Cinderella, you lose your shoes. ~ Morgan Saylor

Nature has lent us life at interest, like money, and has fixed no day for its payment. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

So that even although he had from the beginning given it no other form than that of chaos, provided only he had established certain laws of nature, and had lent it his concurrence to enable it to act as it is wont to do, it may be believed, without discredit to the miracle of creation, that, in this way alone, things purely material might, in course of time, have become such as we observe them at present; and their nature is much more easily conceived when they are beheld coming in this manner gradually into existence, than when they are only considered as produced at once in a finished and perfect state. ~ Rene Descartes

Whorf, even though he died in 1941, lent us a meme. ~ Anonymous

She'd neglected makeup entirely, and those damn black eyes lent her the appearance of a raccoon. A raccoon that had gotten hit in the face. After a lifetime of poor nutrition. The silence was broken only by the humming of the lift, and it felt conspicuous. ~ Daniel O'Malley

One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, "As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect ... " When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn't know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A mug's game in my opinion and tiring on top of that, in the long run. But I lent myself to it with a good enough grace, knowing it was love, for she had told me so. ~ Samuel Beckett

You lent me The Golden Compass! It's full of jinni trickery, and you were angry at me when I told you that made it dangerous! Why do you get mad when religion tells you that the things you want to be true are true?
When it's true, it's not fun anymore. All right? When it's true it's scary. ~ G. Willow Wilson

Each year in early spring, during the season of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Easter, a plenitude of books, magazine articles, and television shows about Jesus appear. ~ Jay Parini

Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scrapping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord we have the stamina to yes to its twists and turns with faith and hope. Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be. ~ Joan D. Chittister

We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us while they afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge or in doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind of benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an encumbrance and answer none of these intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we get rid of them. Death is that way. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Here before you lies the memorial to St. Cefnogwr, though he is not buried here, of course." At her words, an uncanny knowing flushed through Katy and, crazy-of-crazy, transfixed her. "Why? Where is he?" Traci stepped forward, hand on her hip. A you're-right-on-cue look crossed the guide's face. She pointed to the ceiling. Traci scoffed. "I meant, where's the body?" Her American southern accent lent a strange contrast to her skepticism. Again, the tour guide's arthritic finger pointed upward, and a smile tugged at her lips, the smokers' wrinkles on her upper lip smoothing out. "That's the miracle that made him a saint, you see. Throughout the twelve hundreds, the Welsh struggled to maintain our independence from the English. During Madog's Rebellion in 1294, St. Cefnogwr, a noble Norman-English knight, turned against his liege lord and sided with the Welsh - " "Norman-English?" Katy frowned, her voice raspy in her dry throat. "Why would a Norman have a Welsh name and side with the Welsh?" She might be an American, but her years living in England had taught her that was unusual.

"The English nicknamed him. It means 'sympathizer' in Welsh. The knight was captured and, for his crime, sentenced to hang. As he swung, the rope creaking in the crowd's silence, an angel of mercy swooped down and - " She clapped her hands in one decisive smack, and everyone jumped. "The rope dangled empty, free of its burden. Proof, we say, of his noble cause. He's been venerated ever since ~ Angela Quarles

Ridcully sat in horrified amazement. He'd always enjoyed Hogswatch, every bit of it. He'd enjoyed seeing ancient relatives, he'd enjoyed the food, he'd been good at games like Chase My Neighbor up the Passage and Hooray Jolly Tinker. He was always the first to don a paper hat. He felt that paper hats lent a special festive air to the occasion. And he always very carefully read the messages on Hogswatch cards and found time for a few kind thoughts about the sender. Listening to his wizards was like watching someone kick apart a doll's house. ~ Terry Pratchett

Frank [Zappa] was not a big fan of having lyrics, but sometimes he had things to say that lent themselves to lyrics. ~ Gail Zappa

The bedroom door opened and Ginger snapped Evan's reaction shot on her cell phone. He looked like he'd been struck dumb at the sight of Willa coming toward him. She saved the photo of Evan with the intention of showing it to Willa the next time she felt unsure of his feelings for her. The poor kid looked two seconds away from throwing himself at her feet.

"Whoa."

"Hey." Willa shifted from side to side, looking uneasy under Evan's scrutiny. She pretended to adjust the bracelet Ginger lent her to avoid his eyes.

"Willa, stop."

Both sisters gaped at Evan.

"Stop what?" Willa managed.

"I can tell you're freaking out." He held out his hand to her. "Stop."

Ginger watched, fascinated, as Willa's eyes glassed over and she bit her bottom lip. Nodding, she reached out and took his hand.

"You look beautiful," he breathed. ~ Tessa Bailey

By this grace dissolved in place
What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye
Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.
(from "Marina") ~ T. S. Eliot

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. ~ Jose Andres

But so fluid a thing was love.It wasn't firm,he was learning, it wasn't a scripture;it was a wobbliness that lent itself to betrayal,taking the mold of whatever he poured he poured it into.And in fact,it was difficult to keep from pouring it into numerous vessels.It could be used for all kinds of purposes ... He wished it were a constraint.It was truly beginning to frighten him. ~ Kiran Desai

I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time. ~ Thomas Jefferson

It was the same book, every day. The pages of said book were rounded and soft where Young Sam had chewed them, but to one person in this nursery this was the book of books, the greatest story ever told. Vimes didn't need to read it any more. He knew it by heart.

It was called Where's My Cow?

The unidentified complainant had lost their cow. That was the story, really.

Page one started promisingly:

Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

It goes, "Baa!"

It is a sheep! That's not my cow!

Then the author began to get to grips with their material:

Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

It goes, "Neigh!"

It is a horse! That's not my cow!

At this point the author had reached an agony of creation and was writing from the racked depths of their soul.

Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

It goes, "Hruuugh!"

It is a hippopotamus! That's not my cow!

This was a good evening. Young Sam was already grinning widely and crowing along with the plot.

Eventually, the cow would be found. It was that much of a pageturner. Of course, some suspense was lent by the fact that all other animals were presented in some way that could have confused a kitten, who perhaps had been raised in a darkened room. The horse was standing in front of a hatstand, as they so often did, and the hippo was eating at a trough against wh ~ Terry Pratchett

That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God - when they become unfit for these purposes and afford us pain instead of pleasure-instead of an aid, become an encumbrance and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. ~ Benjamin Franklin

If out of concern over cloning, the U.S. Congress succeeds in criminalizing embryonic stem-cell research that might bring treatments for Alzheimer's disease or diabetes - and Dr. Fukuyama lent his name to a petition that supported such laws - there would be real victims: present and future sufferers of those diseases. ~ Gregory Stock

One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. ~ George Soros

At the crest of the hill outside Agor, Henry pulled the car to the side of the road and we got out to take in the view. In the falling shadows, the little Arab village at the foot of the Jewish settlement looked nothing like so grim and barren as it had a few minutes before when we'd driven down its deserted main street. A desert sunset lent a little picturesqueness even to that cluster of faceless hovels. As for the larger landscape, you could see, particularly in this light, how someone might get the impression that it had been created in only seven days, unlike England, say, whose countryside appeared to be the creation of a God who'd had four or five chances to come back to perfect it and smooth it out, to tame and retame it until it was utterly habitable by every last man and beast. Judea was something that had been left just as it had been made; this could have passed for a piece of the moon to which the Jews had been sadistically exiled by their worst enemies rather than the place they passionately maintained was theirs and no one else's from time immemorial. What he finds in this landscape, I thought, is a correlative for the sense of himself he would now prefer to effect, the harsh and rugged pioneer with that pistol in his pocket. ~ Philip Roth

He doubted the hand of God but did not discount it - discarding only the God of the pulpit and the pious. ~ Jeffrey Lent

and that she had shown marked abilities in that direction, so that many people began to say that she was no better than a Jew. It was not that she lent money on interest, but it was known, for instance, that ~ Anton Chekhov

I often sit over against myself, as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnameable active principle that calls itself to life has adapted itself even to this form. All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death; - it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct - it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought - it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude - it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness. Thus we live a closed, hard existence of the utmost superficiality, and rarely does an incident strike out a spark. But then unexpectedly a flame of grievous and terrible yearning flares up. Those ~ Erich Maria Remarque

At start of spring I open a trench
In the ground. I put into it
The winter's accumulation of paper,
Pages I do not want to read
Again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the suns, growth of the ground,
Finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise,
have been inattentive to wonders,
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse,
of mind and body, I close the trench
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new. ~ Wendell Berry

He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few man could be saved in the whole world. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Those have a short Lent who owe money to be paid at Easter. ~ Benjamin Franklin

As long as algebra and geometry have been separated, their progress have been slow and their uses limited; but when these two sciences have been united, they have lent each mutual forces, and have marched together towards perfection. ~ Joseph-Louis Lagrange

Our inner lives must be lent a structure and our best thoughts reinforced to counter the continuous pull of distraction and disintegration. Religions have been wise enough to establish elaborate calendars and schedules. How free secular society leaves us by contrast. Secular life is not, of course, unacquainted with calendars and schedules. We know them well in relation to work, and accept the virtues of reminders of lunch meetings, cash-flow projections and tax deadlines. But it expects that we will spontaneously find our way to the ideas that matter to us and gives us weekends off for consumption and recreation. It privileges discovery, presenting us with an incessant stream of new information – and therefore it prompts us to forget everything. We are enticed to go to the cinema to see a newly released film, which ends up moving us to an exquisite pitch of sensitivity, sorrow and excitement. We leave the theatre vowing to reconsider our entire existence in light of the values shown on screen, and to purge ourselves of our decadence and haste. And yet by the following evening, after a day of meetings and aggravations, our cinematic experience is well on its way towards obliteration. We honour the power of culture but rarely admit with what scandalous ease we forget its individual monuments. We somehow feel, however, that it would be a violation of our spontaneity to be presented with rotas for rereading Walt Whitman. ~ Alain De Botton

She didn't care to be reminded how starved she looked, but she could hardly bemoan the fact. It had lent well to her disguise. Though seventeen, she had masqueraded as a stripling lad beneath the very noses of the Yankees. Captain Latimer had not even been suspicious. ~ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

We are approaching again the Great Lent - the time of repentance, the time of our reconciliation with God. Repentance is the beginning and also the condition of a truly Christian life. ~ Alexander Schmemann

And it all came to pass, all that she had hoped, but it did not fill her with rapture nor carry her away with the power or the fervor she had expected. She had imagined it all different, and had imagined herself different, too. In dreams and poems everything had been, as it were, beyond the sea; the haze of distance had mysteriously veiled all the restless mass of details and had thrown out the large lines in bold relief, while the silence of distance had lent its spirit of enchantment. It had been easy then to feel the beauty; but now that she was in the midst of it all, when every little feature stood out and spoke boldly with the manifold voices of reality, and beauty was shattered as light in a prism, she could not gather the rays together again, could not put the picture back beyond the sea. Despondently she was obliged to admit to herself that she felt poor, surrounded by riches that she could not make her own. ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen

When a bank calls in a loan, it obviously hurts the customer in question. But it also adversely affects other banks that have lent to this borrower. They are now less likely to be repaid and so can't as readily lend to their own customers. ~ Eric Maskin

She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true ... she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. ~ Willa Cather

Sometimes men and women prefer the darkness to the light because they are attached to their sins. Nevertheless it is only by opening oneself to the light and only by sincerely confessing one's sins to God that one finds true peace and true joy. It is therefore important to receive the Sacrament of Penance regularly, especially during Lent, in order to receive the Lord's forgiveness and to intensify our process of conversion. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

[about a book lent by a crush]
Last night I read into the wee small hours. Fell asleep with my face in the book, my nose pressed up against the print. Could smell Sean on the pages, the lingering odours from his sportsbag. Man scent, liniment, damp earth. ~ Bob Condron

The biggest problem the banks had was that they had lent roughly 30 billion euros to the Greek government - where it was stolen or squandered. In Greece the banks didn't sink the country. The country sank the banks. ~ Michael Lewis

Achieving the summit of a mountain was tangible, immutable, concrete. The incumbent hazards lent the activity a seriousness of purpose that was sorely missing from the rest of my life. I thrilled in the fresh perspective that came from the tipping the ordinary plane of existence on end. ~ Jon Krakauer

This part of Warsaw has always been an extension of home for her, part of her shape, a responsive intimate part of her identity. So much she was attached to, so much that lent her footholding weight is now obliterated. It's as if one of the mirrors by which she recognises herself has ceased to reflect her. The teetering balancing act of unsupported walls makes her feel unsteady on her own legs. Buildings taken for granted are no longer standing. There are voids where previously history stood. Feathers like snowflakes rise up into the smoke infested air as if she is inside a macabre snow globe. ~ Glenn Haybittle

I had discerned the ways in which we have been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others. A tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others. ~ Tara Westover

God is not merely at your fingertips but within your grasp. Live each day like a child digging through a treasure chest, rifling for the next discovery. Open your arms and your eyes to the God who stands in plain sight and works miracles in your midst. Look for him in your workdays and weekends, in your meeting-filled Mondays and your lazy Saturdays. Search for him in the snowy sunsets and Sabbaths, seasons of Lent and sitting at your table. Pray for - and expect - wonder. For when you search for God, you will discover him. ~ Margaret Feinberg

On hearing of the interesting events which have happened in the course of a man's experience, many people will wish that similar things had happened in their lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the significance they possess when he describes them ; to a man of genius they were interesting adventures; but to the dull perceptions of an ordinary individual they would have been stale, everyday occurrences.
This is, in the highest degree, the case with many of Goethe's and Byron's poems, which are obviously founded upon actual facts; where it is open to a foolish reader to envy the poet because so many delightful things happened to him, instead of envying that mighty power of fantasy which was capable of turning a fairly common experience into something so great and beautiful. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more gloriously through life than the Juggernaut car that was crushing him. ~ E. M. Forster

Before 9/11, I thought that tragedy had the potential to connect us with humanity in ways that prosperity does not. I thought that if prosperity tends to isolate, tragedy must connect. Now I realize that this is not always the case. One unfortunate response to tragedy is a self-righteousness about one's own condition, a seeking proof of one's special place in the world, even in victimhood. One afternoon, I shared these thoughts with a new colleague, the Israeli vice chancellor of the Budapest-based Central European University. When he told me that he was a survivor of Auschwitz, I asked him what lesson he had drawn from this great crime. He explained that, like all victims of Auschwitz, he, too, had said, "Never again." In time, though, he had come to realize that this phrase lent itself to two markedly different conclusions: one was that never again should this happen to my people; the other that it should never again happen to any people. Between these two interpretations, I suggest nothing less than our common survival is at stake. ~ Mahmood Mamdani

I lent a friend of mine $10,000 for plastic surgery and now I don't know what he looks like. ~ Emo Philips

A soul mate was the person who wielded the greatest power imaginable over you, the person who cupped your happiness in their hands. If the worst happened and the relationship crumbled, they used the power you so foolishly lent them to crush your dreams under their heels as they walked out of your life. Those same hands that had so delicately held your joy were plunged in your chest as they ripped your heart out by its roots. ~ Hailey Edwards

Lent is a favorable time for letting Christ serve us so that we in turn may become more like Him. ~ Pope Francis

As if the weather knew the calendar the last day of August broke with a hard killing frost. Where the sun fell the world spangled, autumn arriving in glacial brilliance, almost suggesting snow over the grass and low shrubbery. Where the sun has not yet struck it was ghostly, a pewter finish over the sagging grass and wilted goldenrod stems. The pods of milkweed were brittle and broke open to release their slight spherical webs of seed onto any straggle of breeze. Smoke streamed white straight up from chimney tops and mist obscured the lake, hanging in sheets of cold vapor that disintegrated slowly from the top down as the sun came over the hills. A third-quarter moon hung against the endless fathoms of a colbalt heaven, the moon a quartzite river stone. ~ Jeffrey Lent

- Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position? - c'est le pigeon, Joseph. Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he lapped the sweet lait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny's face. Lap, lapin. He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie de Jesus by M. Leo Taxil. Lent it to his friend. - C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire a mon p-re. - Il croit? - Mon pere, oui. ~ James Joyce

When you get a hankering to talk or complain about what you gave up for Lent, replace that hankering by speaking the word of God. For all the times you would have done the activity that you gave up for Lent, replace it by reading the word of God. Christians should always be drawing closer to God. ~ Monica Johnson

Don't move," a smooth, lilting feminine voice ordered. Syn arched one brow. It wasn't every day someone got the drop on him, especially a woman who had a voice that lent itself to seduction. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The annoying this was that their authority loomed larger by the hour. One is not aware of it, but these men are kings. Throwing open my rooms, they would say, "Everything here belongs to us." They would fall upon my scraps of thought: "This is ours." They would challenge my story, "Talk," and my story would put itself at their service. In haste, I would rid myself of myself. I distributed my blood, my innermost being among them, lent them the universe, gave them the day. Right before their eyes, though they were not at all startles, I became a drop of water, a spot of ink. I reduced myself to them. The whole presence of me passed in full view before them, and when at last nothing was present but my perfect nothingness and there was nothing more to see, they ceased to see me too. Very irritated, they stood up and cried out, "All right, where are you? Where are you hiding? Hiding is forbidden, it is an offense," etc. ~ Maurice Blanchot

The sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar scarlet fire. ~ Thomas Hardy

His ability to appear to be listening lent him an air of gravity without the inconvenience of an opinion of his own. ~ James S.A. Corey

Wall Street banks have used the same tactic that Bush used in the war on terror - fear - and they've basically said that if you don't do what we tell you, the sky will fall. If you don't do what we tell you, it will be the end of capitalism as we know it. The failure of Lehman Brothers lent some credence to those fears. ~ Joseph Stiglitz

In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas. 'We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,' writes La Rochefoucauld in an aphorism which transports us with an energy and exactitude comparable to that of Maillard bridge. The Swiss engineer reduces the number of supports just as the French writer compacts into a single line what lesser minds might have taken pages to express. We delight in complexity to which genius has lent an appearance of simplicity. (p 207) ~ Alain De Botton

Peter stood, cleared his throat, and began to hum softly, then sing, slowly building up the song as his voice cleared. He found the old tune, the song of the Sunbird. And as he sung, as his rich voice echoed off the tall cliffs, the birds and the faeries lent him their voice and soon the tune drifted throughtout the garden. ~ Brom

I regarded him skeptically. "Mark Gottler would agree to have a private meeting with you in the hopes of getting you to join the congregation?"
"Of course he would. I'm a public sinner with a ton of money. Any church would want me."
I laughed. "Don't you already belong to one?"
Jack shook his head. "My parents were from two different churches, so I was raised Baptist and Methodist. With the result that I've never been sure if it's okay to dance in public. And for a while I thought Lent was something you brushed off your jacket."
-Ella & Jack ~ Lisa Kleypas

Some men make a womanish complaint that it is a great misfortune to die before our time. I would ask what time? Is it that of Nature? But she, indeed, has lent us life, as we do a sum of money, only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that you received it. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

If a pot can multiply. One day Nasrudin lent his cooking pots to a neighbour, who was giving a feast. The neighbour returned them, together with one extra one – a very tiny pot. 'What is this?' asked Nasrudin. 'According to law, I have given you the offspring of your property which was born when the pots were in my care,' said the joker. Shortly afterwards Nasrudin borrowed his neighbour's pots, but did not return them. The man came round to get them back. 'Alas!' said Nasrudin, 'they are dead. We have established, have we not, that pots are mortal?'. ~ Idries Shah

One thing only has been lent to youth and age in common
discontent. ~ Matthew Arnold

My mother taught me to knit when I was seven. I forgot about knitting until one day I saw Marion at the counter with hers and confessed that I knew how. Confessed is the right word. In those days, in the early 1980s, knitting was not a hobby a preteen would readily admit to. But Marion, every enthusiastic, pounced upon me and insisted that I show her something I'd made. I did
a misshapen scarf
which she priased exravagantly. she lent me a raspberry-colored wool for another project, a hat for myself. Since then I've been knitting pretty continuously. It's addictive and it's soothing, and fora a few minutes anyway, it makes me feel closer to my mother. ~ Anita Shreve

I believe in the ordinary day
that is here at this moment and is me
I do not see it going its way
but I never saw how it came to me
it extends beyond whatever I may
think I know and all that is real to me
it is the present that it bears away
where has it gone when it has gone from me
there is no place I know outside today
except for the unknown all around me
the only presence that appears to stay
everything that I call mine it lent me
even the way that I believe the day
for as long as it is here and is me ~ W.S. Merwin

According to his closest disciple who served him while patriarch, Fr Raphael Ava Mina, Kyrillos' diet was meager and austere. When he broke his fast around midday - having started the day with psalmody at three in the morning - it would inevitably be with a piece of bread (qorban) and dukkah. With much pleading, he could occasionally be convinced to add a few small spoons of beans. Often Kyrillos would be delayed by meetings and then he would have his breakfast only after three in the afternoon. For lunch, he would usually have some dried bread with a small number of cooked vegetables - but, Fr Raphael recalls, he would never actually eat the vegetables, but only dip his bread in their sauce. Before he slept, he would usually be satisfied with some fruit or bread at most. "I never saw him touch a piece of chicken or meat, or even have a sip of milk." That was during the non-fasting days. In fasting times, especially that of Lent and the Theotokos fast, even though he had been awake since the earliest hours of the morning, he would eat only once later in the evening.

At one point during the fifty days of Resurrection, Kyrillos gave his regular cook a few days of leave, upon which Fr Raphael, who in his own words "did not know how to cook," thought to take care of the kitchen. Each evening he would lay out roasted chicken, a few small pieces of meat, rice, bread and cheese; only to find the chicken and meat untouched, with the bread and cheese eaten. Given the poor r ~ Daniel Fanous

Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault- finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store. ~ N. T. Wright

I liked the name Frog Brigade because it lent itself to a lot of cool imagery with the whole frog thing. ~ Les Claypool

Alain Badiou was once seated amongst the public in a room where I was delivering a talk, when his cellphone (which, to add insult to injury, was mine
I had lent it to him) all of a sudden started to ring. Instead of turning it off, he gently interrupted me and asked me if I could talk more softly, so that he could hear his interlocutor more clearly ... If this was not an act of true friendship, I do not know what friendship is. So, this book is dedicated to Alain Badiou. ~ Slavoj Zizek

For the first time Vishal had understood what success truly meant. It came at a cost. It came at the expense of others' failure. It did not necessarily merit one's integrity, passion or zeal. It did not worry about the method either. It could not be swapped, lent or borrowed. It was a lonelier place. Smile to a mere few at expense of several heartbreaks. Yet if success was that important, he needed to value it. Life is cruel.

- Beginning with a Comma, Ch 10 ~ Amrit Sinha

Man wants but little, nor that little long; How soon must he resign his very dust, Which frugal nature lent him for an hour! ~ Edward Young

We need to take time to connect with the poor, resist our unceasing cravings, and pray. But we also need to gather with friends and family, share in God's good provision, eat delicious food, tell stories that encourage us all, and celebrate the risen Lord. ~ Chris Seay

Yon Kippur. Greatest Jewish holiday ever. The Jewish day of attonement. You don't ear for one day, all your sins for the year are wiped clean. Beat that with your little Lent. What is Lent? Forty days of absolution. Forty days to one day. Even in sin you're paying retail. ~ Jon Stewart

Here was intellectual life, he thought, and here was beauty, warm and wonderful as he had never dreamed it could be. He forgot himself and stared at her with hungry eyes. Here was something to live for, to win to, to fight for - ay, and die for. The books were true. There were such women in the world. She was one of them. She lent wings to his imagination, and great, luminous canvases spread themselves before him whereon loomed vague, gigantic figures of love and romance, and of heroic deeds for woman's sake - for a pale woman, a flower of gold. And through the swaying, palpitant vision, as through a fairy mirage, he stared at the real woman, sitting there and talking of literature and art. He listened as well, but he stared, unconscious of the fixity of his gaze or of the fact that all that was essentially masculine in his nature was shining in his eyes. But she, who knew little of the world of men, being a woman, was keenly aware of his burning eyes. She had never had men look at her in such fashion, and it embarrassed her. She stumbled and halted in her utterance. The thread of argument slipped from her. He frightened her, and at the same time it was strangely pleasant to be so looked upon. Her training warned her of peril and of wrong, subtle, mysterious, luring; while her instincts rang clarion-voiced through her being, impelling her to hurdle caste and place and gain to this traveller from another world, to this uncouth young fellow with lacerated hands and a line of ra ~ Jack London

No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great. ~ John Chrysostom

The season of Lent is a participation in God's life, not an entrance fee to heaven. Our security comes from resting in God's free gift. ~ Aaron Damiani

When laced into his clothing, Laurent's dangerous grace lent him an almost androgynous quality. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that it was rare to associate Laurent with a physical body at all: you were always dealing with a mind. ~ C.S. Pacat

The tarps Ken Weinrich's crew used has yellow and royal blue stripes, not unlike those for a circus, and this had lent a festive yet undignified mood to the proceedings. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

One lamp - thy mother's love - amid the stars Shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before The throne of God, burn through eternity - Holy - as it was lit and lent thee here. ~ Nathaniel Parker Willis

I get a little behind during Lent, but it comes out even at Christmas. ~ Frank Butler

She was a grown young woman when she was overtaken by what she supposed to be the climax of her fate. It was when the face and figure of a great tragedian began to haunt her imagination and stir her senses. The persistence of the infatuation lent it an aspect of genuineness. The hopelessness of it colored it with the lofty tones of a great passion. ~ Kate Chopin

Her tragedy hadn't made her more approachable, and in fact lent her the unknowable quality of a person who had suffered more than could be expressed. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Private Parts

The first love of my life never saw me naked - there was always a parent coming home in half an hour - always a little brother in the next room.
Always too much body and not enough time for me to show it.

Instead, I gave him my shoulder, my elbow, the bend of my knee - I lent him my corners, my edges, the parts of me I could afford to offer - the parts I had long since given up trying to hide.
He never asked for more.

He gave me back his eyelashes, the back of his neck, his palms - we held each piece we were given like it was a nectarine that could bruise if we weren't careful.

We collected them like we were trying to build an orchid.

And the spaces that he never saw, the ones my parents half labeled "private parts" when I was still small enough to fit all of myself and my worries inside a bathtub - I made up for that by handing over all the private parts of me.

There was no secret I didn't tell him, there was no moment I didn't share - and we didn't grow up, we grew in, like ivy wrapping, moulding each other into perfect yings and yangs.

We kissed with mouths open, breathing his exhale into my inhale - we could have survived underwater or outer space.

Breathing only of the breathe we traded, we spelled love, g-i-v-e, I never wanted to hide my body from him - if I could have I would have given it all away with the rest of me - I did not know it was possible.
Sarah Kay

Spoken Word Poetry