Penitent God Quotes

My palm connected with the final looking-glass. A wave of brittle fractures rippled outward from the place my sanguine hand had struck. It shattered. I watched the pieces of my former life
the reflection of this monster I'd become - fall about my feet in a hailstorm of blood, tears, and broken mirrors. My attrition was complete. And now dissension boiled in my veins. I would find my penance. Even if God could not forgive me, even if she could not forgive me ... maybe I could at least find the power to forgive myself. ~ S.G. Night

His is the name of fire, the name that rides the whisper of the candlelight. His name was ... is ... Racath Thanjel. And this is his story.
-The Penitent God ~ S.G. Night

I clench my teeth and push forward. My pen grinds out the first and eldest word: an Ink-borne lance of black fire, scratched into a sheet of ice.
-The Penitent God ~ S.G. Night

I am the Penitent God. And tonight, I have begun my battle. My siege. The hundred-thousand Ink-borne arrows, flying forth from my flaming pen, to assault the walls of tyrannical Cold that hold this man in awful rapture. My campaign for my friend's very soul. My war of Ice, Ink, and Ember. ~ S.G. Night

It will be a battle, then. A siege. A hundred-thousand Ink-borne arrows, flying forth from my flaming pen to assault the walls of tyrannical Cold that hold this man in awful rapture.
It will be campaign for my friend's very soul. A war of Ice, Ink, and Ember.
So be it.
My pen scratches the icy parchment once more. A second Ember joins the first.
The War begins.
-The Penitent God ~ S.G. Night

If you were to look on him fleetingly, to spare him only a passing glance, you would see only a man. If you looked a moment longer, you might get the feeling that there was something about him, something distinctly different. You might notice something peculiar about his eyes, might spot something strange about the tattoos running the length of his arms. Something out of place, something you cannot quite put your finger on….But to you, he still would be just a man.
But a clever eye…a clever eye could see him for what he truly is.
A clever eye would notice how his pupils taper at their tops and bottoms. A clever eye would see that his irises are no natural color. A clever eye would see that the patterns coiled on his arms, like blackened tongues of roiling flame, are not sunken into his skin like a tattoo's Ink, but gently beveled at their edges - a part of his flesh. A clever eye could tell that, no, he is not just a man. Not just a Human.
He is a Majiski - one of my people.

-The Penitent God ~ S.G. Night

Why don't you just do it, then?" Racath hissed. "Just kill me. I dare you."

Now, I assume you know what this is. You've seen this before in other stories - the part where the disgruntled villain stands over the hero. He is triumphant, the hero now at his mercy. But when commanded to slay him, he hesitates. He lowers his sword. And he says: "I cannot."

If you are to take away but one thing from the words I have spoken, let it be this: there is a world of difference between "I Cannot" and "I will not".

"I cannot" is a surrender. It implies a lack of options. Someone who says such a thing does so only because they have no other choice. They do not WISH to relent - in fact, they usually want to obey their mandate and destroy the hero at their feet. But they cannot, because the guilt is too unbearable. But that does not make him a better man; all that a man who says "I cannot" has done, is given in to the compulsion to repent.

Allow me to make myself perfectly clear - I HAD other options. Easy options. Simple options. I could have killed Racath Thanjel that day. I could have killed him and all the others, too. I could have left them dead and bloody on that grassy hill, and gone trotting back to the Imperator's lap. I could have shrugged off the attrition that had dogged my every step, thought better of my disenssion, given up on all hope of absolution and accepted my damnation. And I could have spent the rest of eternity destroying God' ~ S.G. Night

This is not my story.
-The Penitent God ~ S.G. Night

She was always like that - it's what I remember most about her. There was always something…wrong with Rachel. She was always permeated with some terrible resentment, like a cloak she wore around herself. In a way, it was fascinating. Beautiful…but terrifying. Make no mistake: I have seen greater power than hers, before and since. But hers…hers was different. And I feel no shame in admitting that I was always afraid of Rachel Vaveran.

-The Penitent God ~ S.G. Night

Thank god there's no 48-hour race anywhere in the world, because chances are nobody could beat Porsche in a 48 hour race. They're probably the only cars in the world that would stand up for something like that. ~ Carroll Shelby

God created astrologers to make pollsters look accurate. ~ John Kasich

My success is not about the wealth and fame. I am most concerned with my relationship to God, which is the most important. ~ Manny Pacquiao

It is no small advantage to the holy life to "begin the day with God." The saints are wont to leave their hearts with Him over night, that they may find them with Him in the morning. Before earthly things break in upon us, and we receive impressions from abroad, it is good to season the heart with thoughts of God, and to consecrate the early and virgin operations of the mind before they are prostituted to baser objects. When the world gets the start of religion in the morning, it can hardly overtake it all the day. ~ Thomas Case

Oh God," Jenna said, "will you shut up and kiss me before I change my mind? ~ Richard Finney

Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on. ~ Gregory David Roberts

If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything. ~ Blaise Pascal

I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

There is a well-intentioned pious belief that they are all fundamentally identical. In terms of an underlying psychological resonance, there may indeed be important similarities at the cores of many religions, but in the details of ritual and doctrine, and the apologias considered to be authenticating, the diversity of organized religions is striking. Human religions are mutually exclusive on such fundamental issues as one god versus many; the origin of evil; reincarnation; idolatry; magic and witchcraft; the role of women; dietary proscriptions; rites of passage; ritual sacrifice; direct or mediated access to deities; slavery; intolerance of other religions; and the community of beings to whom special ethical considerations are due. We ~ Carl Sagan

She'd been faithful to God through everything He'd laid at her feet, but where was He now?"
(Arise From Dark Places) ~ Connie Almony

When we all play our part the world will run as designed. Do your part and do it now! ~ TemitOpe Ibrahim

God of ages, Lord of Time, mine is the right to be wrong. ~ Jethro Tull

Go run away Over the cloud And over the cliff And jump into the mouth of God And be tasted And the whole thing is over When you flip through the air. ~ Arthur L. Carson

I'm gonna make you hairless where God didn't intend. ~ Ashlan Thomas

Why should a Christian be called upon always to deny himself, his own feeling, and will, and pleasure? Why must he part with his life - that life to maintain which a man is prepared to make any sacrifice? Why should a man hate and lose his life? The answer is very simple. It is because that life is so completely under the power of sin and death that it has to be utterly denied and sacrificed. The self-life must be wholly taken away to make room for the life of God. He that would have the full, the overflowing life of God, must utterly deny and lose his own life. ~ Andrew Murray

God put thorns around the
Love's door to stop anyone
who's not a Lover from entering. ~ Rumi

God is concerned with our imaginations, for they in a large measure determine what kind of persons we are to be. ~ Billy Graham

Grief is a stern teacher, but I am confident I could not have learned some lessons in any other way. For that, I am grateful. Grateful to God for loving me enough to stretch me and push me and crush me, to refine me in the furnace of affliction, to force me to stretch my faith beyond what I could see.
God loves me more than I can possible comprehend. He watches over me. He watches over all of us. But if the way were easy, how could we grow into who He wants us to be? How could our faith become unshakable? ~ Jennifer Beckstrand

It's often said that God works in mysterious ways. You have to really think about what He's trying to do. You can't be lazy and believe in God; He doesn't make it that easy. It takes spirit and faith and passion to really believe. Like most things worthwhile in life, you get back what you put into it. Only with faith, you get back a lot more. ~ David Baldacci

So, if someone like Richard Dawkins indignantly protests that his passion about these sorts of things -- the passion that drives the "God Delusion" -- should not be taken as a religious passion, I am happy to accept that. I do nevertheless think that often Dawkins and company show the sociological characteristics of the religious. This comes across particularly in what Freud calls the narcissism of small differences, the hatred of those who are close to them but not quite close enough. Just as evangelicals can differ bitterly over the true meaning of the host, so the New Atheists loathe people like me who (like them) have no religious belief but who think that science as such does not refute religion.
[Is Darwinism a Religion? - Michael Ruse] ~ Michael Ruse

God put us here to go through this kind of mental gymnastics, and He certainly put us here to enjoy our sexual lives. He put us here to ask, to try and find out the best way possible to live with our neighbors. Of course, you can go through a life not asking, and that's the tragedy: so many lives lived in moral blindness. ~ Dorothy Day

God doesn't respond to your tears and emotions, He responds to your faith! ~ Paul Silway

Each truth we find (in life) leads us a step closer to God. ~ Donald L. Hicks

God should not be called an individual substance, since the principal of individuation is matter. ~ Thomas Aquinas

The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His. ~ Roger Ebert

Bite your tongue. My boyfriend is a rock god,baby. ~ Rachel Caine

He did not hope that God heard his prayers; he knew it. ~ Eric Metaxas

Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life. ~ Henri Nouwen

If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron. ~ Lee Trevino

Marriage means handing over yourself, your body, your future, your keeping to the one whom you dearly love, although this person may, in many ways, remain a stranger. This tremendous act of faith is something that can unlock in each lover powers of compassion, generosity, joy, passion, fidelity and hope that no one guessed was even there. That is why the confidence of young lovers is not foolish or arrogant, but an expression of a basic fact in human experience that the greatest of human gifts are set to work only when people are prepared to risk everything and first you risk it before God. ~ Ravi Zacharias

Do we? Our problem is whatever wedges between us and God. ~ Toni Sorenson

Don't magnify your problems, magnify your God ... he's got you covered. ~ Tony Evans

Perish each thought of human pride, let God alone be magnified. ~ Philip Doddridge

With me the connection between the cosmic phenomena and human behaviour is a living faith that draws me nearer to God, humbles me and makes me readier for facing Him. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!
Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. ~ Mary Shelley

All that is in the world is vanity except to love God and serve him only. ~ Thomas A Kempis

God, possessing supreme and infinite wisdom, acts in the most perfect manner, not only metaphysically, but also morally speaking, and ... with respect to ourselves, we can say that the more enlightened and informed we are about God's works, the more we will be disposed to find them excellent and in complete conformity with what we might have desired. ~ Gottfried Leibniz

Some of us may be without a special person to love. That can be difficult, but it is not an impossible situation. We may want and need someone to love, but I think it helps if we love ourselves enough. It's okay to be in a relationship, but it's also okay to not be in a relationship. Find friends to love, be loved by, and who think we are worthwhile. Love ourselves and know we are worthwhile. Use our time alone as a breather. Let go. Learn the lessons we are to be learning. Grow. Develop. Work on ourselves, so when love comes along, it enhances a full and interesting life. Love shouldn't be the concern of our whole life or an escape from an unpleasant life. Strive toward goals. Have fun. Trust God and His timing. He cares and knows all about our needs and wants. ~ Melody Beattie

The purpose of problems is to push you toward obedience to God's laws, which are exact and cannot be changed. We have the free will to obey them or disobey them. Obedience will bring harmony, disobedience will bring you more problems. ~ Peace Pilgrim

The laws of physics are the canvas God laid down on which to paint his masterpiece. Vittoria ~ Dan Brown

Anybody who passes more than a day in eternity is as old as God could ever be. ~ John Berger

It's not correct to say Jesus is God. Now, don't run and report me to the bishop, all right? It's not correct to say that - Jesus is the union of the human and the divine. That's different. ~ Richard Rohr

Part of the depressive syndrome is that you are immensely loyal to your interpretation of yourself and your world. If God says you are forgiven in Christ, you create new rules that mandate contrition, penance, and self-loathing. If God says he loves you, you insist it is impossible. There it is: your system is higher than God's. ~ Edward T. Welch