“I may have many struggles ahead- don't we all?- but I want you to know I know who I am. - Jimmy, page 226 in Saturday's Warrior”
“If you want to live and you want to prosper, you’ve got to be ambitious. You’ve got to be ready to sacrifice leisure and pleasure, and you’ve got to plan ahead. I was forty years old before I had any money at all. But these things don’t happen overnight. Now, how many people are there who will wait that long to be successful, and work all the time? Not very many. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m a bloody fool. But I don’t think I am.”
“I have never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down. ”
“I at this writing am an old man, only three years short of my three score and ten. And they tell me that Wycliffe’s bones have been dug up and burned and cast into the river that leads to the sea. The Church--she thinks--has had her revenge. But, as I hear it, Wycliffe’s writings had already touched one man in Bohemia, John Huss, whom the Church burned several years ago. And though both Wycliffe and Huss be dead, There are rumors of unrest in that small country, unrest caused by those who seek true religion. In England, King Henry rules hand in glove with the Pope, but not forever, I think. We are still here--the Lollards, I mean. Did you guess it? Yes, I have become a “poor priest.” And I will tell you this: the writings of Wycliffe have been driven out of Oxford, but they can be found in every other nook in England. Indeed, many a time I have talked with an Oxford scholar on the road and have seen God open his heart to the truth. This is what Saint Paul meant when he spoke of Christians as being pressed but never pinned. The Church rages, but the truth goes on. Many a stout English yeoman embraces it in these days and leads his family in true godly worship. John Wycliffe was our morning star. When all was darkest and England lay asleep in the deadly arms of the papacy, God sent him to us. The Scripture has come to England. What will it hold back? Soon--though perhaps not in my lifetime-- the dawn will break, and there will be a new day in England.”
“Who is most wretched in this dolorous place?I think myself; yet I would rather beMy miserable self than He, than HeWho formed such creatures to His own disgrace.The vilest thing must be less vile than ThouFrom whom it had its being, God and Lord!Creator of all woe and sin! abhorredMalignant and implacable! I vowThat not for all Thy power furled and unfurled,For all the temples to Thy glory built,Would I assume the ignominious guiltOf having made such men in such a world.As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign,At once so wicked, foolish and insane,As to produce men when He might refrain!The world rolls round for ever like a mill;It grinds out death and life and good and ill;It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.While air of Space and Time's full river flowThe mill must blindly whirl unresting so:It may be wearing out, but who can know?Man might know one thing were his sight less dim;That it whirls not to suit his petty whim,That it is quite indifferent to him.Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith?It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath,Then grinds him back into eternal death.”
“...I know I was wrong. If i could go back and do it over, I would. I wish I could undo it all."I know that." Grandma reached over and put a twisted hand on hers. "'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.' Isaiah one eighteen."I've done terrible things."Don't make no difference. You can't out-sin the cross.”
“Ryder: “Well, you’re not the type I want to be my first either.”Grace:“What?” Ryder: “You’re the type I want to be my last. You know...the settle down and marry sort. If you’re my first, then I won’t get to—I don’t know—sow any wild oats or anything.”