Nun Quotes

When I was a nursemaid at the home of the landowners, a nun who happened to pass once gave me something square and white.Timidly I licked it and discovered that it was sweet and delicious. I realize now that it must have been a sugar cube;but still, more than twenty years later, I remember clearly the joy I felt then. It's not just children; everyone seems to be deeply touched by unexpected joy brought to them by others and is unable to forget it.
That child will be grown up by now, and if he hasn't forgotten me, whenever he sees a crying child he'll want to say a kind word and wipe the kid's nose. And when that kid grows up, he'll do the same. To do something kind for another is never a bad feeling; it fosters a spirit of caring for other people. And who knows,after a hundrend years, human beings may even learn to cooperate with one another...Yes, that was it: I'd try to teach children that if they felt glad when someone gave them a single piece of candy,then they in turn should give to others. ~ Sayo Masuda

People always ask me if I hate the nuns. Do I make my movies extra dirty to piss them off? I always say no, that's not the point. To a Catholic, a movie is only dirty if it makes you want to have sex more. If it makes you feel sick, disgusted, ashamed of your own body, then it's not a dirty movie at all. It's a Catholic movie. And I make very Catholic movies. ~ Kevin Smith

Alive," Kimi interrupted. "I get you out of typhoon alive and you just yell and say bad things. I quit. You get new navigator. Roberto say you mean, nasty, Chevy-driving, milk-drinking, American dog f*cker."
I don't drink milk," Tuck said. Ha! Won that round. ~ Christopher Moore

Listen, if you're not going to be a nun or something, you might as well laugh. ~ J.D. Salinger

Whether we are describing a king, an assassin, a thief, an honest man, a prostitute, a nun, a young girl, or a stallholder in a market, it is always ourselves that we are describing. ~ Guy De Maupassant

I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is. ~ Joan D. Chittister

Worst was this boy Billy Hill, he was in school with me. When the nun called out his name she done it last name first, so it come out Hill, Billy. Can you imagine that? Hillbilly. ~ Henry Turner

The nuns taught me that the best thing you can do in life when things get difficult is to work. ~ Frederick Lenz

You simply do not understand the human condition," said the robot.

Hah! Do you think you do, you conceited hunk of animated tin?"

Yes, I believe so, thanks ot my study of the authors, poets, and critics who devote their lives to the exploration and description of Man. Your Miss Forelle is a noble soul. Ever since I looked upon my first copy of that exquisitely sensitive literary quarterly she edits, I have failed to understand what she sees in you. To be sure," IZK-99 mused, "the relationship is not unlike that between the nun and the Diesel engine in Regret for Two Doves, but still… At any rate, if Miss Forelle has finally told you to go soak your censored head in expurgated wastes and then put the unprintable thing in an improbable place, I for one heartily approve.

Tunny, who was no mamma's boy - he had worked his way through college as a whale herder and bossed construction gangs on Mars - was so appalled by the robot's language that he could only whisper, "She did not. She said nothing of the sort."

I did not mean it literally," IZK-99 explained. "I was only quoting the renunciation scene in Gently Come Twilight. By Stichling, you know - almost as sensitive a writer as Brochet. ~ Poul Anderson

What nuns don't realize is that they look better in nun clothes than in J. C. Penney pantsuits. ~ Walker Percy

In the world of the Bible, one's identity and one's vocation are all bound up in who one's father is. Men are called "son of" all of their lives (for instance, "the sons of Zebedee" or "Joshua, the son of Nun"). There are no guidance counselors in ancient Canaan or first-century Capernaum, helping "teenagers" decide what they want "to be" when they "grow up." A young man watches his father, learns from him, and follows in his vocational steps. This is why "the sons of Zebedee" are right there with their father when Jesus finds them, "in their boat mending the nets" (Mark 1:19-20).
The inheritance was the engine of survival, passed from father to son, an economic pact between generations. To lose one's inheritance was to pilfer for survival, to become someone's slave. ~ Russell D. Moore

The body's weakness comes from illnesses, while the heart's weakness comes from sins. And just as the body does not taste the delights of food when it is ill, the heart does not taste the delights of worship when it is sinful. ~ Dhul-Nun Al-Misri

If I get some Bruce Lee nun-chucks that he actually used in a movie, those are going in the case. Those will never be used. Those will never be touched. ~ Tracy Morgan

In the religion of Love the courtesan is a heretic; but the nun is an atheist. ~ Richard B. Garnett

If you become a Nun, dear,
The bishop Love will be;
The Cupids every one, dear!
Will chant-'We trust in thee!' ~ Leigh Hunt

Up to now my involvement in the Tibetan freedom struggle has been part of my spiritual practice, because the issues of the survival of the Buddha Teaching and the freedom of Tibet are very much related. In this particular struggle, there is no problem with many monks and nuns, including myself, joining. ~ Dalai Lama

What news? There's nothing to tell. I'm a nun. ~ Ken Follett

When I was a little girl, I used to walk around with a towel on my head, pretending I was a nun. And then one day my mother said, 'Why don't you just become an actress, and then you can pretend you're a nun.' ~ Olivia Hussey

Did you become a Christian in your nunnery?' I asked her.
'Of course not.' she said scornfully.
'They didn't mind?'
'I gave them silver.'
'Then they didn't mind.' I said.
'I don't think any Dane is a real Christian.' she told me.
'Not even your brother?'
'We have many gods,' she said, 'and the Christian god is just another one. I'm sure that's what Guthred thinks. What's the Christian god's name? A nun did tell me, but I've forgotten.'
'Jehovah.'
There you are, then. Odin, Thor and Jehovah. Does he have a wife?'
'No.'
'Poor Jehovah.' she said. ~ Bernard Cornwell

About as much business as a cat owner has selling dog food. Or an Olympic swimmer has advertising for downhill ski equipment. Or a nun writing hard core erotica.
Abso-fucking-none. ~ Laurel Ulen Curtis

Prison life taught him how little one can get along with, and what extraordinary spiritual freedom and peace such simplification can bring. I remember again, ironically, that today more of us in the world have the luxury of choice between simplicity and complication of life. And for the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication. War, prison, survival periods, enforce a form of simplicity on us. The monk and the nun choose it of their own free will. But if one accidentally finds it, as I have for a few days, one finds also the serenity it brings. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

She thought she should take a moment to pray. But, as she was holding a loaded rifle, conventional prayer did not seem entirely suitable. Sister Peg hoped that God would help her, but it was her belief that He much preferred for people to attend to themselves. Life was a test; it was up to you to pass it or not. She raised the gun to her clavicle and angled one eye down the length of the barrel. ~ Justin Cronin

A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me. ~ Anne Lamott

What happened when the Verb asked the noun to conjugate? She said "no-no!", forgot the "o" and decided to become a nun! ~ Ana Claudia Antunes

Cordelia: I hope I've got a vocation.
Charles: I don't know what that means.
Cordelia: It means you can be a nun. If you haven't a vocation it's no good however much you want to be; and if you have a vocation, you can't get away from it, however much you hate it. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Nigerian nun Bernadette Duru says the African church hierarchy is indifferent to people in rural areas. ~ Sylvia Poggioli

It hurts me when I see a priest or a nun with the latest model car, you can't do this. A car is necessary to do a lot of work, but please, choose a more humble one. If you like the fancy one, just think about how many children are dying of hunger in the world. ~ Pope Francis

how from time to time some young and beautiful nun had suddenly disappeared, to the surprise and alarm of her companions; how piercing shrieks had been heard to issue from the interior of the building, by those who passed near it at night, - and how the inmates themselves were often aroused from their slumbers by strange noises resembling the rattling of chains, the working of ponderous machinery, and the revolution of huge wheels. ~ George W.M. Reynolds

I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it ... I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a woman with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer. ~ Helen Prejean

I beheld before me an animated Corse. Her countenance was long and haggard; Her cheeks and lips were bloodless; The paleness of death was spread over her features, and her eye-balls fixed stedfastly upon me were lustreless and hollow.
I gazed upon the Spectre with horror too great to be described. My blood was frozen in my veins. I would have called for aid, but the sound expired, ere it could pass my lips. My nerves were bound up in impotence, and I remained in the same attitude inanimate as a Statue.
The visionary Nun looked upon me for some minutes in silence: There was something petrifying in her regard. At length in a low sepulchral voice She pronounced the following words.
Raymond! Raymond! Thou art mine!
Raymond! Raymond! I am thine!
In thy veins while blood shall roll,
I am thine!
Thou art mine!
Mine thy body! Mine thy soul!
~ Matthew Gregory Lewis

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, sober steadfast, and demure, all in a robe of darkest grain, flowing with majestic train. ~ John Milton

These were the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land, and Moses renamed Hoshea son of Nun, Joshua. Numbers 13:16 ~ Beth Moore

Luke-freakin'-Holtz. Damn. To bad I didn't meet him two months ago. Right now, I can't imagine dating anyone ever again. I'm going to become a nun. ~ Veronica Blade

I am Albanian by birth. Now I am a citizen of India. I am also a Catholic nun. In my work, I belong to the whole world. But in my heart, I belong to Christ. ~ Mother Teresa

the seventeenth-century saint, Margaret Marie Alacoque, a French nun of Parayle-Monial, who founded the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Margaret would deliberately eat cheese knowing that it made her vomit, and by her own admission she ate the vomit of sister nuns. ~ John Cornwell

Hey, controlling a zombie horde is hard work. I'd punch a nun for a cheeseburger right about now. ~ Jaye Wells

I can give you a spirit love, I have given you this long, long time; but not embodied passion. See, you are a nun. I have given you what I would give a holy nun ... In all our relations no body enters. I do not talk to you through the senses - rather through the spirit. That is why we cannot love in the common sense. ~ D.H. Lawrence

But human anatomy and human endurance are variable. While the much younger nun had succumbed to her injuries, Ursula's heart kept beating, her body unwilling to surrender its soul. Not a miracle, merely one of those quirks of fate, like the child who survives a fall from a sixth-floor window, and is only scratched. ~ Tess Gerritsen

Whenever folks say radical Christianity is "a phase" of youth, I tell them they need to meet our 80-year-old nun or my friend Tony Campolo. ~ Shane Claiborne

I had me one sharp knife, a throwback to my glory days of the swans, and it's sharp as a nun on her second sherry. ~ Ken Bruen

God, I was just six years older than you are now. That's terrifying." She raised her shoulder, nudging my head. "Please don't make me a grandmother in six years, okay?"
I scoffed. "Trust me, after the Boy Issues I've had, I'm becoming a nun."
"Well, that's good to know."
We stayed there, dangling our feet over the creek, talking, until the sun was high overhead. By the time we made our way back to the compound, I was feeling a little better. Sure, my life was still intensely screwed up, but at least I had some answers. ~ Rachel Hawkins

It is odd that neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point. At what point sin begins is a matter as to which casuists differ. One eminently orthodox Catholic divine laid it down that a confessor may fondle a nun's breasts, provided he does it without evil intent. But I doubt whether modern authorities would agree with him on this point. ~ Bertrand Russell

It was an odd relationship, but then she was an extraordinary woman: a prioress who doubted much of what the church taught; an acclaimed healer who rejected medicine as practised by physicians; and a nun who made enthusiastic love to her man whenever she could get away with it. If I wanted a normal relationship, Merthin told himself, I should have picked a normal girl. ~ Ken Follett

If Avery was a whore, so was a nun ~ J. Lynn

Well, OK then." He narrowed his eyes. "How about you? Do you have any ... romances I should know about?"
"Nope. Not one."
"Well, good. Excellent. There'll be plenty of time for boys when you leave college and become a nun."
She smiled. "I'm glad you have such ambitious dreams for me. ~ Derek Landy

I still have a problem with nuns. I follow them around like a kitten with a ball of yarn. After a while, all my characters become very close friends. ~ Meg Tilly

A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man. ~ H.L. Mencken

A Japanese man festooned with cameras, a nun, a young girl in braids. ~ Anne Tyler

My manager wants me to dress like a nun and I want to dress like a teenager. ~ Anna Kournikova

Let the old Muse loosen her stays
Or give me a new Muse with stockings and suspenders
And a smile like a cat,
With false eyelashes and finger-nails of carmine
And dressed by Schiaparelli, with a pill-box hat.
...
Give me a houri but houris are too easy,
Give me a nun;
We'll rape the angels off the golden reredos
Before we're done. ~ Louis MacNeice

I had a long talk with my dear Fat Mary that night, because I had many questions. Could someone actually be beaten to death by such a nun? Did Mother Rufina, the new Superior, know that Sister Clotilda was so cruel? Who let her work with children? Could nuns go to hell?
Fat Mary told me she didn't know the answers to my questions, but she reminded me that it was her role to take my worries and burdens and keep them for me until a time when I could understand them. ~ Maria Nhambu

You can love one man and leave another and love a man and still leave him and leave a man without ever loving him, you can fuck everybody you meet or live like a nun and in the end you still wind up at Target. ~ Kim Wright

Will you still love me in the morning?"
"Un jae na (Always). Nuh nun (How about you?)?"
"Young won hee (Forever). ~ Bianca B. Bernardino

St. Seraphim, like Francis of Assisi, talked to animals. One day two nuns saw him deep in conversation with a bear. The bears of the Russian forests are very ferocious, and the two women were terrified. But Seraphim reassured them and showed them that he who is sanctified lives in peace with all creation, just as Adam did before the Fall. ~ Olivier Clement

If you'd told me even a year before ... that I'd wind up whispering my sins in the confessional or on my knees saying the rosary, I would've laughed myself cockeyed. More likely pastime?Pole dancer. International spy. Drug mule. Assassin.
I drive under a sky black as graphite to meet my new spiritual director ... a bulky Franciscan nun named Sister Margaret, patiently going blind behind fish-tank glasses that magnify her eyes like goggles. ~ Mary Karr

Most of the people who have verbally asserted that 'there is no master of pronounciation' have intentionally made a claim and unintentionally made their claim believable. (It is 'pro-nun-ciation' not 'pro-noun-ciation'.) ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness. ~ Ambrose Bierce

There are women who love their husbands as blindly, as enthusiastically, and as enigmatically as nuns their cloister. ~ Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

Then Sister Aquinata abandoned the nonviolent methods and produced a rolling pin from somewhere. ~ Mary Robinette Kowal

I became a writer not because my father was one - my father made false teeth for a living. I became a writer because the Irish nuns who educated me taught me something about bravery with their willingness to give so much to me. ~ Richard Rodriguez

Patience is seeking help only from Allah. ~ Dhul-Nun Al-Misri

It would not interfere with your being a nun. I live like an evil-minded monk myself. ~ J.D. Salinger

...they did not come down hard on Leone because she had murdered her lover. It was because her sister was a nun. ~ Chancellor Press

Catholic media sucks. It's boring. It's for old people. It's not interesting. It's like you're in a class with an 80 year old nun. ~ Lino Rulli

Trust me, after the Boy Issues I've had, I'm becoming a nun. ~ Rachel Hawkins

Believe it or not, I have this recurring dream about church and a nun. ~ Hank Moody

Are you okay?" asked Finisterre.
"Annoyed," I said, giving him my hand so he could heave me to my feet.
"Yes, I should imagine being attacked by a nun might be annoying. ~ Jasper Fforde

I know it's probably wrong to fantasize about giving a nun a karate chop in the neck, but I couldn't help it. She was making me mad. ~ Meg Cabot

I grew up in a house without many books. The books the nuns made us read in school didn't interest me. ~ John Dufresne

It's fine." Brett shrugged, suppressing the urge to say something like, "The drugs are okay, but the sex is lousy." But she didn't want her suddenly nun-like sister to have a heart attack before Brett got a chance to pump her for information. ~ Cecily Von Ziegesar

People wanted me to be like the Madonna, the white nun, you know, and that's not me. But I'm no villain. ~ Mary Beth Whitehead

When a general examination of the rhyme scheme in the Qur'an is
made, we see that around 80% of the rhymes consist of just three
sounds (n, m, a) consisting of the letters Alif, Mim, Ya and Nun258.
Excluding the letter "Nun," 30% of the verses are rhymed with "Mim,"
"Alif" or "Ya."

The formation of rhymed prose with just two or three sounds in a
poem of 200-300 lines may give that work an important quality, sufficient
for it to be described as a masterpiece by literary critics today.
However, bearing in mind the length of the Qur'an, the information it
contains and its wise exposition, the extraordinary manner in which its
rhymed prose system is used becomes even clearer and more beautiful.
The Qur'an indeed contains an ocean of information relating to a wide
variety of subjects. They include: religious and moral guidance, lessons
from the lives of the peoples of the past, the message of the prophets
and messengers of Allah, the physical sciences and historical accounts
of important events. But all of this, although wonderful in itself, is
delivered with the most fantastic literary rhythm and excellence. It is
simply not possible for so much rhymed prose by use of so few sounds
in the Qur'an, with its varied and knowledgeable subject matter, to be
achieved by human endeavour. From that point of view, it is not surprising
that Arab linguists describe the Qur'an as "very de ~ Harun Yahya

For me, 'Lamb' started out as a further exploration of the phenomenon of faith and the responsibility of a messiah that I touched on in 'Coyote Blue' and 'Island of the Sequined Love Nun,' but it ended up being an exploration of the true meaning of sacrifice, loyalty, and friendship. ~ Christopher Moore

When he looked up she was smiling, that flagstone-cracking beam of a smile that had always made her look twenty years younger. Agnes's smile wasn't the kind of smile that the regular world would associate with the word "nun." It was a smile that had always contained a touch of mischief, and also a terrible rage, kept in check until it was needed. This was what had enabled her to sustain the Home, and her many other projects, in the face of opposition from the Vatican on down. The smile and the rage. ~ Terry Pratchett

The film libraries on some of these channels." Elmina said. "I swear. There was one on last night. I couldn't sleep. After I saw, it, I was afraid ro sleep. Have you seen Black Narcissus, 1947?"
Eddie, who was enrolled in the graduate film program at SC, let out a scream of recognition. He's been working on his doctoral dissertation, "Deadpasn to Demoniac - Subtextual Uses of Eyeliner in the Cinema," and had just in fact arrived at moment in Black Narcissus where Kathleen Byron, as a demented nun, shows up in civilian gear, including eye makeup good for a year's worth of nighmares. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Once one is convinced of the idea of eternal life or death, the person may do almost anything to achieve the reward or avoid punishment. He may fly an airplane into a building or become a missionary to another county. She may become a celibate nun or vow to raise a quiver full of children and homeschool them according to her religion. At the very least, the person will attend church regularly, give money, pray and do other things to ensure good standing with the deity. The root of this action is the hope for a reward and avoidance of punishment. ~ Darrel Ray

THE GAMBLER,THE NUN,& THE RADIO
I am a poor idealist. I am a victim of illusions. He laughed. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

When Annunziata said she loved me or any of her thousands of other friends and beloveds, she was really saying, at least in my mind, "God loves you." To quote the singer/songwriter James Taylor, she showered the people she loved with love, always showing the way that she felt without holding back. Even as her body could barely contain her soul any longer, she'd open wide the gates of herself with a smile, that giggle, her twinkling eyes, and she'd let the supernatural love flow through her. Walking out of the chapel after her funeral, a woman I'd never seen before stopped me and said, "You're Cathleen, aren't you?" "Yes," I croaked, tears rolling off my nose as I fingered the prayer card with Annunziata's picture on it. Slipping an arm around my shoulders, the woman explained that she was one of Annunziata's former students and said, "She loved you so much." I know. ~ Cathleen Falsani

People are quite clear in viewing nuns as the servants and the teachers and the supporters of the poor. You contrast that with the fact that the Vatican did virtually nothing about long-known pedophiles, and it's just too much. ~ Gloria Steinem

When the Irish nun said to me, "Speak your name loud and clear so that all the boys and girls can hear you," she was asking me to use language publicly, with strangers. That's the appropriate instruction for a teacher to give. If she were to say to me, "We are going to speak now in Spanish, just like you do at home. You can whisper anything you want to me, and I am going to call you by a nickname, just like your mother does," that would be inappropriate. Intimacy is not what classrooms are about. ~ Richard Rodriguez

I dressed the way I did not because I was trying to be a nun, but because it felt good - and because it made me feel less vulnerable in general, like I wore a kind of armor every day. It was a personal preference. ~ Tahereh Mafi

I've been kissed Slade. I'm a virgin, not a nun. ~ Shayla Black

Remember what it says in Matthew: And false prophets shall abound, and they shall deceive many'" "And from the multiplication of lawlessness, love shall grow cold in many," said Pelagia, continuing the apostolic citation. Dolinin started and gave the nun a strange look, as if he had just heard those words for the first time, or perhaps had never really thought about their meaning before. ~ Boris Akunin

Soon a whole guild of low-priced shrine keepers around Europe named their own pope - Boldface the Relatively Shameless, Discount Pope of Prague. The price war was on [ ... ] The Retail Pope would offer cheesy bacon toppings on the Host with communion and the Discount Pope would counter with topless nun night for midnight mass. ~ Christopher Moore

Thank you." Lib tried to think of some more conversational note to end on. "It's always intrigued me," she said, letting her voice rise, "why you Sisters of Mercy are called walking nuns." "We walk out into the world, you see, Mrs. Wright. We take the usual vows of any order - poverty, chastity, obedience - but also a fourth, service." Lib had never heard the nun say so much before. "What kind of service?" Anna broke in: "To the sick, the poor, and the ignorant." "Well remembered, child," said the nun. "We vow to be of use." As ~ Emma Donoghue

It's funny to hear priests and nuns argue with each other. ~ Wendelin Van Draanen

For moderns - for us - there is something illicit, it seems, about wasted time, the empty hours of contemplation when a thought unfurls, figures of speech budding and blossoming, articulation drifting like spent petals onto the dark table we all once gathered around to talk and talk, letting time get the better of us. _Just taking our time_, as we say. That is, letting time take us.

"Can you say," I once inquired of a sixty-year old cloistered nun who had lived (vibrantly, it seemed) from teh age of nineteen in her monastery cell, "what the core of contemplative life is?"

"Leisure," she said, without hesitation, her china blue eyes cheerfully steady on me. I suppose I expected her to say, "Prayer." Or maybe "The search for God." Or "Inner peace." Inner peace would have been good. One of the big-ticket items of spirituality.

She saw I didn't see.

"It takes time to do this," she said finally.

Her "this" being the kind of work that requires abdication from time's industrial purpose (doing things, getting things). By choosing leisure she had bid farewell to the fevered enterprise of getting-and-spending whereby, as the poet said, we lay waste our powers. ~ Patricia Hampl

To a Young Nun

This undemanding love
that our staggered births
have purchased for us -
You in your generation,
I in mine.
I am not the one
you are looking for.
You are not the one
I've stopped looking for.
How sweetly time
disposes of us
as we go arm in arm
over the Bridge of Details:
Your turn to chop.
My turn to cook.
Your turn to die for love.
My turn to resurrect. ~ Leonard Cohen

I hear what they're saying about faith, about the priests at our church and how they relate to women, about the bishops and cardinals above the priests and how they ignore women, about the things they are reading and thinking about. And I realize several things in rapid succession: you can be Catholic and feminist. You can be Catholic and lesbian. You can be Catholic and a straight female and not have kids. You can be Catholic and have children but wonder if they should be Catholic. You can be Catholic and believe in better access to birth control, especially in impoverished and AIDS-ravaged communities. You can be Catholic and female and not be a nun and still be a leader in the church. Women, as it turns out, are part of the priestly class. It's just that they aren't allowed to minister publicly. They do it in places like here, and in hospitals, classrooms, homeless shelters, and in any room, really, where there is someone who needs healing. ~ Kaya Oakes

Brightly and merrily swaying, like an April shower, came the young lady.

Perhaps if she had been sad and conscience stricken, like certain dames of old who left the site of their illicit love as woe-begone as the passing moment that never returns; if the lady had approached in full cognizance of her frailty, ready to forego a man's respectful handkisses of greeting, and trembling in shame at the tryst exposed in broad daylight, like Risoulette, sixty-six times, whenever having misbehaved, she hastened back home teary-eyed to her Captain; or if a lifelong memory's untearable veil had floated over her fine features, like the otherworldly wimple of a nun . . . Then Pistoli would have stood aside, closed his eyes, swallowed the bitter pill, and come next winter, might have scrawled on the wall something about women's unpredictability. Then he would have glimpsed ghostly, skeletal pelvic bones reflected in his wine goblet, and strands of female hair, once wrapped around the executioner's wrist, hanging from his rafters; and would have heard wails and cackles emanating from the cellar's musty wine casks, but eventually Pistoli would have forgiven this fading memory, simply because women are related to the sea and the moon, and that is why at times they know not what they do. ~ Gyula Krudy

And she says..."
I'd been fighting a losing battle with yawning for a while. I was failing fast. "I have no idea.'I'm in love with someone else'?"
Nonna snorted hard enough to shake the mattress. "With who? There is no one else like Michelangelo. He is king of the sea! In love with someone else. Pah."
"Okay.Fine.Tell me what she said."
"Nonna leaned toward me, eyes bright. "She says, 'You do not see me.' And my bisnonno, he says, 'Of course I see you! Every day I see you by the seawall. I see you in my mind, too, in pearls and furs and silks. So, here,here I offer you these things.' And she says..."
"Thank you?"
"Per carita!"
"'No,thank you?'"
"Ah,Fiorella. I think you are not the child of my child! Rifletti. Use that good brain."
"Nonna..."
"She says, 'You do not see me!' And she sends him away."
I wasn't sure I was getting the point. Here's an ordinary girl in ratty clothes who's going to end up a nun if she doesn't get married. Along comes a decent guy with money, promising to take her away from it all...Wasn't that where is usually faded to Happily Ever After? ~ Melissa Jensen

The monk, Gregory the Great, tells how a nun, in her greed, ate a lettuce without first making the sign of the cross to protect herself against the evil spirits that hide between its leaves, and so she became possessed by a demon. Greetwell ~ Karen Maitland

I'd heard a Catholic nun on TV once saying that bearing suffering was the route to grace. I remembered Fluff saying: If there's a God he's addicted to faith. Because without evil there's no need for faith. I can't get excited about a God who's divinity depends on a drug habit. ~ Glen Duncan

I admire certain priests and nuns who go off on their own and do God's work on their own, who help in the ghettos, but as far as the institution of the church is concerned, I think it is despicable. ~ Frank McCourt

He looked back at the mirror. "I know it's completely ridiculous, but I can't keep quiet about it any longer. Your closet looks like it was put together by a blind nun, and your brother acts like a cross between a monkey and a go-kart, and you have the social skills of a rock. But I like you, Amy. Quite - quite a bit." He paused. "So, congratulations. ~ Clifford Riley

When we were starting our community a bunch of older Benedictine nuns said to us, "If you have any questions or want to pick our brains, please do - we've been doing community for about 1,500 years together so we've learned a few things." ~ Shane Claiborne

I can see you're jealous of Millie's love for me," he teased, his smile charming enough to make a nun reconsider her vows, "but you can't blame her. I've always had a way with a pussy. ~ Jessica Gadziala

He was lost, captured by an innocent, destroyed by a would-be nun, and there was no way the monster, Simon of Navarre, Richard the Fair's Grendel, would ever be the same. ~ Anne Stuart

You stupid chick ... nun ... whatever. I'm a tenth-degree black belt in Korean Karate!" "But you don't have the power of God, you uncircumcised philistine! ~ James Scott Bell

In the words of Pope John Paul II at the canonization of St. Edith Stein - a Catholic Carmelite nun who died in Auschwitz because of her Catholic faith and her Jewish descent - "Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive lie. ~ Chris Stefanick