“Show some respect. They were your grandparents. -BatmanJust names and dusty frames on the wall to me. -DamienI take exception to that. There is not a speck of dust collecting on those portraits. -Alfred”

“«I realize there are a lot of things I haven't shared with you.»«That's because you don't trust me, father.»«I didn't trust you, Damian, do you really think you'd be standing here--my life's most safeguarded secrets accessible?»«Sometimes I think your secrets have secrets»”

“It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.”

“It is interesting to me to note that those who most frequently call for fair play are those who are advantaged by the play as it currently is, and that only when that position of privilege is endangered are they likely to benefit from the change required to "play by the rules." What if the "rules" are inherently unfair or simply wrong, or a greater good is to be accomplished by changing them? When the gospel says, "The last will be first, and the first will be last," despite the fact it is counterintuitive to our cultural presuppositions, it is invariably good news to those who are last, and at least problematic news to those who see themselves as first.”

“An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.”

“There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought”

“My course is a survey of how readings of the same constant text have varied over the centuries, from the formation of the canon to our present time, dependent on context and subtext. A community in exile will read differently than a community in apparent full possession of all it surveys, with those who have nothing welcoming the promised overturning of the standing order, and those who have much of this world's goods not longing for the end of the age. Depending, then, upon how one reads and interprets, either the Bible is a textbook for the status quo, of quiescent pieties and promises, or it is a recipe for social change and transformation. There are churches dedicated to each point of view, each claiming its share of the good news; but what is good news for some is often bad news for somebody else.”