Parish Quotes

On the porch, the sarge is having a heated debate with her second-in-command. The topic's no mystery; you can hear them clearly through the open door. They've completed the mission, the 2IC argues, time to off these bastards and return to base. "Capture and contain," the sarge shoots back. "My orders don't say nothing about offing anybody." She's wavering, though; you can hear it in her voice. her 2IC comes back with my point about the bomb-shitting beast in high orbit: Whatever she decides about the Dorothys, they have to return to base before dawn or enjoy a front-row seat to Armageddon. ~ Rick Yancey

Abolitionists believe that, as all men are born free, so all who are now held as slaves in this country were born free, and that they are slaves now is the sin, not of those who introduced the race into this country, but of those, and those alone, who now hold them and have held them in slavery from their birth. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Recent studies have considered the detection of a spaceship visiting our parish of the galaxy. In my opinion that last thought should bring a blush to every human cheek ... Fecklessness might be the main theme of the aliens' report on the new-found source of radio pollution ... that emanates from beings who have mastered a lot of physics, chemistry and biology and yet let their children starve-while all around their planet the energy of their mother star runs to waste in a desert of space. ~ Nigel Calder

That parish which allows the living to grasp the no longer cold hand of the beloved dead ~ Dennis Potter

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. "Hold ~ Charles Dickens

From that time on the parish priest began to show signs of senility that would lead him to say years later that the devil had probably won his rebellion against God, and that he was the one who sat on the heavenly throne, without revealing his true identity in order to trap the unwary. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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

This conversation revealed to Odo a third conception of the religious idea. In Piedmont religion imposed itself as a military discipline, the enforced duty of the Christian citizen to the heavenly state; to the Duke it was a means of purchasing spiritual immunity from the consequences of bodily weakness; to the Bishop, it replaced the panem et circenses of ancient Rome. Where, in all this, was the share of those whom Christ had come to save? Where was Saint Francis's devotion to his heavenly bride, the Lady Poverty? Though here and there a good parish priest like Crescenti ministered to the temporal wants of the peasantry, it was only the free-thinker and the atheist who, at the risk of life and fortune, laboured for their moral liberation. Odo listened with a saddened heart, thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down ~ Edith Wharton

There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The more ignorant men are, the more convinced are they that their little parish and their little chapel is an apex to which civilization and philosophy has painfully struggled up the pyramid of time from a desert of savagery. ~ George Bernard Shaw

It's amazing how time can move both quickly and slowly at the same time. ~ Martin Parish

One of the great challenges in healthcare technology is that medicine is at once an enormous business and an exquisitely human endeavor; it requires the ruthless efficiency of the modern manufacturing plant and the gentle hand-holding of the parish priest; it is about science, but also about art; it is eminently quantifiable and yet stubbornly not. ~ Robert Wachter

I had been moved by John Wesley's line "The world is my parish" and had decided I was the pastor of everyone in my neighborhood, whether they acknowledged me as such or not. I didn't need their permission to love them like mad, listen to their stories, or be their friend. And what else exactly is a pastor supposed to do? ~ Jonathan Martin

A suburban pastor maintained services appropriate for his respected, professional parish. His father, an excitable traveling evangelist, visited and challenged the congregation to confront pride and sing out loudly with the windows open. The next day, the pastor's banker mentioned overhearing, and he was sheepish. The buttoned-up banker said, though, that the neighborhood had been WAITING TO HEAR the church live out the joy they claimed. ~ David Wilkerson

I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out! ~ Pope Francis

My father taught me a good lesson: Don't get to low when things go wrong. And don't get too high when things are good. ~ Robert Parish

Every art is a church without communicants, presided over by a parish of the respectable. An artist is born kneeling; he fights to stand. A critic, by nature of the judgment seat, is born sitting. ~ Hortense Calisher

And in more than half the pictures, she isn't looking at the camera; she's looking at him. Not the way I would look at Ben Parish, all squishy around the eyes. She looks at Evan fiercely, like, This here? It's mine ~ Rick Yancey

But now I see well the old proverb is true: That parish priest forgetteth that ever he was a clerk! ~ John Heywood

I have always hoped that it might be possible to conclude my ministry as I had begun it, as a parish priest, and this I believe to be the call of God. ~ David Hope, Baron Hope Of Thornes

see a little village a mile ahead of us with a venerable church on a mound in the middle of it gravely presiding over the surrounding wide parish of corn. ~ Elizabeth Von Arnim

He promoted the education of the parish clergy and wrote: He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear. ~ Alfred The Great

They made a major mistake," he blurted out, "the dumb bastards, when they didn't start by killing you first."
"Benjamin Thomas Parish, that was the sweetest and most bizarre compliment anyone's ever given me."
I kissed him on the cheek. He kissed me on the mouth.
"You know," I whispered, "a year ago, I would have sold my soul for that."
He shook his head. "Not worth it." And, for one-ten thousandth of a second, all of it fell away, the despair and grief and anger and pain and hunger, and the old Ben Parish rose from the dead. The eyes that impaled. The smile that slayed. In another moment, he would fade, slide back into the new Ben, the one called Zombie, and I understood something I hadn't before: He was dead, the object of my schoolgirl desires, just as the schoolgirl who desired him was dead. ~ Rick Yancey

I once saw my mother playing Mary Magdalene in a parish event. But she had to put the role aside in order to go and front the choir who were singing at the same occasion. She left the stage halfway through the Crucifixion. ~ Fiona Shaw

We are here to know the unknown, love everyone, feel the joy of life and then we parish with infinite happiness. ~ Debasish Mridha

Zombie!" Sammy calls. "I knew it was you."
Zombie?
"Where are you taking him?" Ben says to me in a deep voice. I don't remember it being that deep. Is my memory bad or is he lowering it on purpose, to sound older?
"Zombie, that's Cassie," Sam chides him. "You know - Cassie."
"Cassie?" Like he's never heard the name before.
"Zombie?" I say, because I really haven't heard that name before.
I pull off the cap, thinking it might help him recognize me, then immediately regret it. I know what my hair must look like.
"We go to the same high school," I say, drawing my fingers hastily through my chopped-off locks. "I sit in front of you in Honors Chemistry."
Ben shakes his head like he's clearing out the cobwebs.
Sammy goes, "I told you she was coming."
"Quiet, Sam," I scold him.
"Sam?" Ben asks.
"My name is Nugget now, Cassie," Sam informs me.
"Well, sure it is." I turn to Ben. "You know my brother. ~ Rick Yancey

At the parish level, where the church lives and moves and breathes, that's where we need to be engaging our people much more in understanding the Word of God ... the Word of God reflected in the traditional teaching of the church, the Word of God reflected in the scriptures, is as much a part of their lives as anything else. ~ Donald Wuerl

Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration with exposition needs a great push. People ask me: 'What will convert America and save the world?' My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in holy hours of prayer. ~ Mother Teresa

The Ray of Light does not withdraw. It is the body that withdraws itself, feeling fear. The Real Ray, the Real "You" is as immortal as the Source. ~ Louise Parish Anderson

Even the simplest wicker basket can become priceless when it is loved and cared for through the generations of a family. ~ Sister Parish

As long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, and to publish whatever I please on any subject, being amenable to the laws of my country for the same. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

I most earnestly advise you, again and again, love, honor, and obey your parents. Friends like them, you need not expect to find in this world. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Focus on writing first. ~ Lyra Parish

When someone asks me to help create a room my first reaction, if I do not already know the person, is to try to feel out what he or she really wants the room to be and to understand, if possible, what "memory," old or new, has brought this idea about. ~ Sister Parish

Then there rose up before her a vision of a parish saved, a village reformed, a county reorganised, and a triumphant election at the end, the recompense and crown of all, which should put the government of the country itself, to a certain extent, into competent hands. ~ Mrs. Oliphant

The pastor of a parish will typically have no education in the chant or in music, and he will hire the first music director who walks through the door. ~ Richard Morris

You are supposed to stand before a congregation, brimming over with a great message. Here I am trying to find a new little message each Sunday. If I really had great convictions I suppose they would struggle for birth each week. As the matter stands, I struggle to find an idea worth presenting and I almost dread the approach of a new sabbath. I don't know whether I can ever accustom myself to the task of bringing light and inspiration in regular weekly installments. How in the world can you reconcile the inevitability of Sunday and its task with the moods and caprices of the soul? The prophet speaks only when he is inspired. The parish preacher must speak whether he is inspired or not. I wonder whether it is possible to live on a high enough plane to do that without sinning against the Holy Spirit. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

I'd love to look like my mum when I am her age. She taught ballet for years, and my attitude to exercise and fitness has definitely been influenced by her. She's 84 now, and I've watched how well she has aged, and a lot of that is to do with her fantastic posture. ~ Sarah Parish

I can't help but think that if she was going to kill herself, she might as well have done it earlier. Perhaps when I was a toddler. Or better yet, an infant. It certainly would have made my life easier. I asked my uncle Hugh (who is not really my uncle, but he is married to the stepsister of my current mother's brother's wife and he lives quite closeand he's a vicar) if I would be going to hell for such a thought. He said no, that frankly, it made a lot of sense to him. I do think I prefer his parish to my own. ~ Julia Quinn

As worthless as guilt was known to be, he couldn't help feeling it, seeing his wife work herself to exhaustion for a parish tea that would last only two hours. ~ Jan Karon

Going to marry her? Impossible! You mean a part of her; he could not marry her all himself. It would be a case, not of bigamy but trigamy; there is enough of her to furnish wives for the whole parish. One man marry her! - it is monstrous! You might people a colony with her; or give an assembly with her; or perhaps take your morning's walk round her, always provided there were frequent resting places, and you were in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got half way and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Riot Act and disperse her; in short, you might do anything but marry her! ~ Sydney Smith

I will teach you to love death. I will empty you of grief and guilt and self-pity and fill you up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance. I will make my final stand here, Benjamin Thomas Parish. ~ Rick Yancey

The minister is the parish clock. Many people take their time from him. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I give her my best smile. Before the alien Armageddon happened, I was known for my smile. Not bragging too much, but I had to be careful never to smile while I drove. It had the capacity to blind oncoming traffic. But it has absolutely no effect on Ringer. She doesn't squint in its overwhelming luminescence. She doesn't even blink. ~ Rick Yancey

The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles ... when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones. ~ Flann O'Brien

The eternal God - the infinite Jehovah - has done all he could do - even to the sacrificing his own Son - to provide a way for man's happiness, and yet they reject him, hate him, and laugh him to scorn! ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Dost thou renounce Satan, and all his Angels, and all his works, and all his services, and all his pride?" ...
The first act of the Christian life is a renunciation, a challenge. No one can be Christ's until he has, first, faced evil, and then become ready to fight it. How far is this spirit from the way in which we often proclaim, or to use a more modern term, "sell" Christianity today! ... How could we then speak of "fight" when the very set-up of our churches must, by definition, convey the idea of softness, comfort, peace? ... One does not see very well where and how "fight" would fit into the weekly bulletin of a suburban parish, among all kings of counseling sessions, bake sales, and "young adult" get-togethers ...
"Dost thou unite thyself unto Christ? ~ Alexander Schmemann

Can you just saw his arm off while we're here and get me loose? (Amanda)
I could do that, but he needs his more. I'd cut yours off before I did his. (Tate)
Oh, great, what are you, his Igor? (Amanda)
Wrong movie, Igor was Frankenstein's flunky. Renfield is the one you're thinking of, and no, I'm not Renfield. Name's Tate Bennett. Parish coroner. (Tate) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I leave it to Pater Leoden to distribute the remainder of my worldly goods among the parish, as, being an immoral soul, I will have no further need of them."
"You mean, immortal, don't you?" Chronicler asked uncertainly. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

Living as she did in a state of perpetual nervous exhaustion, always driving herself beyond her strength lest the tasks of home and parish accumulate beyond her ability to cope with with them, afraid to relax lest she collapse altogether, she had largely lost the power of wonder, and with it the power of looking at familiar things with fresh appreciation. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

I know what you're thinking," he says.
"No. You don't."
"You're wondering if you should kiss me good-bye. ~ Rick Yancey

In fact, properly speaking, no parish priest has any convictions on politics. At the back of his mind, he regards the state as an enemy that has usurped the temporal power of the Pope. Being an enemy, the state must be exploited as much as possible and without any qualms of conscience. Because of this innate and perhaps unconscious hostility to the state as an institution, the parish priest cannot see that it is the duty of a citizen to endeavour to make political life as morally clean as possible.

He cannot see that the community as a whole must always come into the forefront of every citizen's political consciousness and that personal interests must be sacrificed to the interests of the nation. No. The parish priest regards himself as the commander of his parish, which he is holding for His Majesty the Pope. Between himself and the Pope there is the Bishop, acting, so to speak, as the Divisional Commander. As far as the Civil Power is concerned, it is a semi-hostile force which must be kept in check, kept in tow, intrigued against and exploited, until that glorious day when the Vicar of Christ again is restored to his proper position as the ruler of the earth and the wearer of the Imperial crown.

This point of view helps the parish priest to adopt a very cold-blooded attitude towards Irish politics. He is merely either for or against the government. If he has a relative in a government position, he is in favour of the government. If he has a relative ~ Liam O'Flaherty

It seems to me scarcely possible that one who has so long lived in sin, who has resisted so much light and has so often grieved away the Holy Spirit, as I have, should again be visited with its heavenly influences. But I hope it is so. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

There is a light that glimmers along the darkening edge of an infinite horizon. In that light the heart finds what the heart seeks. In that light, Dumbo goes where his beloved Zombie goes. In that light, a boy named Ben Parish finds his baby sister. In that light, Marika saves a little girl called Teacup. In that light promises are kept, dreams realized, time redeemed.
And Zombie's voice speeding Dumbo toward the light "You made it private. You found me."
No darkness slamming down. No endless fall into lightlessness. All was light when I felt Dumbo's soul break the horizon.
Lost, found, and all was light. ~ Rick Yancey

Yes, I was a parish priest for five years. I was a curate in a large working class parish in Bristol and the Vicar of a village in Kent. ~ John Polkinghorne

Just as dogs often come to resemble their owners, it seems that programming languages end up reflecting the temperaments and personalities of their creators in some subtle ways, ~ Nick Parish

If the civil authorities refuse to protect me, I must look to God, and if I die, I have determined to make my grave in Alton. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

The God you imagine looks like Father Brennan, the man who baptized you: tall and Irish, with white hair and kind blue eyes, shooting a basketball in black vestments on the parish playground. The Virgin is one of the nuns who ran the adjoining schoolhouse: a spinster with a downy chin, her veil a habit. Old and sacred words, they taught you. You would not invent your own any more than you would try to build your own cathedral. Bead by bead, you whisper the same words Saint Peter spoke in Rome, the same words spoken today by all believers in São Paulo and Boston and Limerick and Cebu. ~ Mia Alvar

His face was shockingly handsome,tan and smooth,except for the two healed scars near his right ear and mouth. ~ Laura Wright

and he stopped going to church entirely, because there seemed no point now in even contemplating prayer for his soul. Besides, the parish church near Kilmartin dated to 1432, and the crumbling stones certainly couldn‟t takea direct strike of lightning.
And if God ever wanted to smite a sinner, he couldn‟t do better than Michael Stirling.
Michael Stirling, Sinner.
He could see it on a calling card. He‟d have had it printed up, even - his was just that sort of black sense of humor - if he weren‟t convinced it would kill his mother on the spot.
Rake he might be, but there was no need to torture the woman who‟d borne him. ~ Julia Quinn

I'm a big-boned, athletic-looking woman, and I have to make the best of what I've got. I like to stay fit and healthy, but I could probably give myself a break sometimes. ~ Sarah Parish

I have appealed to the constitution and laws of my country; if they fail to protect me, I appeal to God, and with Him I cheerfully rest my cause. I can die at my post, but I cannot desert it. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Private Zombie, did your mother have any children that lived?"
"Sir! Yes, sir!"
"I bet when you were born she took one look at you and tried to shove you back in! ~ Rick Yancey

Presentation was the name of the Catholic church [my mother's family] attended, and this is what I love about the Irish: My mother became known as the second prettiest girl at Presentation parish. "Why was that okay?" I once asked her. "Oh, because everybody knew Mary Griffin was the most beautiful girl at Presentation," she replied. My mom was happy to be on the D-list! Just like I'm not trying to be Brooke Shields, she wasn't trying to be Mary Griffin. ~ Kathy Griffin

A man who behaves poorly in a Community will not do well in a parish. ~ Vincent De Paul

Look at life from our perspective, and you eukaryotes will soon cease giving yourselves such airs. You bipedal apes, you stump-tailed tree-shrews, you desiccated lobe-fins, you vertebrated worms, you Hoxed-up sponges, you newcomers on the block, you eukaryotes, you barely distinguishable congregations of a monotonously narrow parish, you are little more than fancy froth on the surface of bacterial life. Why, the very cells that build you are themselves colonies of bacteria, replaying the same old tricks we bacteria discovered a billion years ago. We were here before you arrived, and we shall be here after you are gone. ~ Richard Dawkins

I wouldn't say the world is my parish, but my readers are my parish. And especially the readers that write to me. They're my parish. And it's a responsibility that I enjoy. ~ Andrew Greeley

Should he make a note? He felt for the smooth shape of his pen in his pocket. 'Theme for a novel: The contrary pull ... " No. If this notion were real, he needn't make a note. A notion on which a note had to be made would be stillborn anyway, his notebook was a parish register of such, born and dead on the same page. Let it live if it can. ("Novelty") ~ John Crowley

While I value the good opinion of my fellow citizens as highly as anyone, I may be permitted to say that I am governed by higher considerations than either the favor or the fear of man. I am impelled to the course I have taken because I fear God. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

I think you can have your career and still bring to your family something very, very special. There are some people who are born mothers, who don't want to work and just want to stay at home, and that's fantastic, but for me it was something very difficult. ~ Sarah Parish

Parish, get back into position!' Max warned. 'Do not go in there. I repeat, do not go in there.' 'We lose him now, we lose him for good,' Caitlin declared. 'And I am not going to let that happen.' 'You have insufficient backup. I repeat: insufficient backup. ~ Lindsay J. Pryor

At this time of crisis we cannot be concerned solely with ourselves, withdrawing into loneliness, discouragement and a sense of powerlessness in the face of problems. Please do not withdraw into yourselves! This is a danger: we shut ourselves up in the parish, with our friends, within the movement, with the like-minded ... but do you know what happens? When the Church becomes closed, she becomes an ailing Church, she falls ill! That is a danger ... A Church closed in on herself is the same, a sick Church. ~ Pope Francis

As the Bible inculcates upon man but one duty in respect to sin, and that is immediate repentance, abolitionists believe that all who hold slaves, or who approve the practice in others, should immediately cease to do so. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility, it can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community. ~ Pope Francis

Emancipation, to be of any value to the slave, must be the free, voluntary act of the master, performed from a conviction of its propriety. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

As a Bolling in Feliciana Parish, I became accustomed to sitting on the porch in the dark and talking of the size of the universe and the treachery of men; as a Smith on the Gulf Coast I have become accustomed to eating crabs and drinking beer under a hundred and fifty watt bulb - and one is as pleasant a way as the other in passing a summer night. ~ Walker Percy

Behind every attractive room there should be a very good reason. ~ Sister Parish

If there's a job to be done, I always ask the busiest man in my parish to take it on and it gets done. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

had the misfortune of meeting up a parish employee ~ Faith Hunter

Living with fear stops us taking risks, and if you don't go out on the branch, you're never going to get the best fruit. ~ Sarah Parish

If I am not safe in Alton, I shall not be safe anywhere. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Every hundred years or so a new Grim Anoukie is made; the Parish Priest at the time picks a victim, usually someone who has pissed off the church or simply wouldn't be missed. He then buries them alive in the Virgin Grave; the rest is... history."

Nicky Peacock
"The Virgin Grave ~ Nicky Peacock

I am very much looking forward to being a parish priest. ~ David Hope

Bjartur declared that he had never denied that there was much that was strange in nature. "I consider that there's nothing wrong in believing in elves even though their names aren't on the parish register," he said. "It hurts no one, yes and even does you good rather than harm; but to believe in ghosts and ghouls
that I contend is nothing but the remains of popery and hardly fit for a Christian to give even a moment's consideration." He did his utmost to persuade the women to accept his views on these matters. ~ Halldor Laxness

I was only beginning to enter into the infinite subtlety of Gregorian chant. It was - and remains - the only public prayer I have ever been able to engage in without feeling like a phony and a jackass. But then, one day in 1965 or so, it was simply abolished. With a stroke of his pen, Pope John XXIII - who had such good ideas about other things - declared that liturgy would henceforth be in the vernacular language of the people. That was, effectively, the end of Latin chant.

Then all those monks and nuns who had devoted hours and hours a day began to sicken and fall into depressions, but nobody noticed for a long time. Maybe, as I can well believe, the music toned up their systems in some mysterious way. Or perhaps chant really was a language that God understood. Faced with numerous liturgical scholas shrieking away in the new vernacular hymns, Divinity may have covered its ears and withdrawn, leaving the monks to pine. We parish musicians, illiterate in anything written after the 13th century, stumbled around trying to score liturgies for guitar and bongo drums, trying to make sense of texts like "Eat his body! Drink his blood!"

It wasn't because the music got so bad that I quit going to Mass, but it certainly was the beginning of my doubts about papal infallibility. ~ Mary Rose O'Reilley

Amelia Bedelia," said Mrs. Rogers,
"Christmas is just around the corner."
"It is?" said Amelia Bedelia. "Which corner?"
Mrs. Rogers lauhged and said,
"I mean tomorrow is Christmas Day."
"I know that," said Amelia Bedelia. ~ Peggy Parish

A point often ignored in cinema history studies of [Bette] Davis," wrote Jim Parish and Don Stanke years later of Housewife, "is that Ann Dvorak, who plays the film's title role, was established as a strong dramatic actress long before Bette, and it was she who set the standard for battling with the studio for better roles. In her quiet performance as Nan Wilson Reynolds, it is Miss Dvorak and not the already mannered Bette, who woos the audience's attention and affection. It is Dvorak who provides the proper artistic control for the feature…" The big difference between the two actresses was maturity. Bette, in these early movies, was very rough around the gills; she became polished, but always tended to slip into campy tirades. Dvorak was a natural; she was intense, but always in control, even in highly emotional situations. ~ Ray Hagen

It is generally accepted that divine service affords a legitimate opportunity for the congregation to assess not only the appearance, deportment, elegance and possible wealth of new arrivals to the parish, but the demeanour of any of their neighbours known to be in an interesting situation, ranging from pregnancy to bankruptcy. ~ P.D. James

My earliest memory is of sitting at Mum's dance school, watching her teach a ballet class. ~ Sarah Parish

I would not leave a mother alone in her plight. They described how she had kept the news of my brother's death from our ailing father and on the evening that he was brought home, chapel bells rang out and kept ringing in honor of him, his valor, and my father kept asking if it was a bishop or something that was visiting the parish, not knowing that it was his own son. ~ Edna O'Brien

Emancipation - what is meant by it? Simply that the slaves shall cease to be held as property and shall henceforth be held and treated as human beings. Simply, that we should take our feet from off their necks. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

And there was some trouble with Oliver Cowdery, and whisper said it was relating to a girl then living in his family; and I was afterwards told by Warren Parish, that he himself and Oliver Cowdery did not that Joseph had Fannie Alger as wife, for they were spied upon and found together. And I can now see that at Nauvoo, so at Kirtland, that the suspicion or knowledge of the Prophet's plural relation was one of the causes of apostasy and disruption at Kirtland, although at the time there was little said publicly on the subject. ~ Benjamin F. Johnson

I've seen that cornered look on more than a few Parish faces over the years, and each time it brings a lump to my throat. The old-timers say you eventually get numb to it. I'm not sure I want to live that long. ~ Steven Dos Santos

I suppose that St. George is our own original St. George, who killed the Dragon and afterwards married the grand lady. In many of the marriages of grand ladies, however, which take place in this parish, the preliminary ceremony of the gentleman killing a dragon is often omitted. I am against all this dropping of the full formalities. ~ G.K. Chesterton

And though it would not be long before even the daft Mr. Collins would discover her condition, and be forced to behead her, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and her ever deepening lust for tender morsels of savory brains had not yet lost their charm. ~ Seth Grahame-Smith

I miss the honor of serving as a parish pastor. There is nothing quite like it. The most challenging aspect of the job is that you just can't please everybody all the time, no matter how hard you try. But the greatest honor of the office, from my perspective, is being invited into the lives of people at their very best moments and at their very worst moments. ~ Matthew C. Harrison

I'm not bitching."
"Yes, you are. You're bitching like a junior miss beauty queen. ~ Rick Yancey

Aspire to inspire! ~ Lyra Parish

Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoloeague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore. ~ John Boyne

Do not let the hero in your soul parish, in lonely frustration, for the life you deserved but never have been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. ~ Ayn Rand