Ritual Quotes - Page 10

• Children of course are monstrously conventional, repelled at once by whatever is off-center, out of whack, unmanageable. And being an only child I had been coddled a good deal (also scolded). I was awkward, precocious, timid, full of my private rituals and aversions.

  Alice Munro

  Children, Awkward, Only Child

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• Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Beautiful, Hands, Bitter

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• Tragedy was foresworn, in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender.

  William Gaddis

  Heart, Drawing, Hands

  William Gaddis (1955). “The Recognitions: A Novel”

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• I think we ought to close Halloween down. Do you want your children to dress up as witches? The Druids used to dress up like this when they were doing human sacrifice... Your children are acting out Satanic rituals and participating in it, and don't even realize it.

  Pat Robertson

  Children, Halloween, Sacrifice

  "The 700 Club". TV Series, www.imdb.com.

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• It's vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.

  Twyla Tharp

  Giving Up, Creative, Patterns

  Twyla Tharp, Mark Reiter (2003). “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life”, Simon and Schuster

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• I had to de-program myself. From myself. Had to reinvent rituals of purification. So full of the vagrant pollutions of others. It was time to detox. Not only from alcohol, sex, and drugs, but from needy leeches who looked to swab me with their sores. Detox from my own needy lechery. Had to locate the center wound and cauterize. Undo the original sin, the origin of my sickness...Had to learn to replace Them, It, Want, Hurt, Anger, Sorrow, Loss, with Power, Healing, Wisdom, Fulfillment, Satisfaction.

  Lydia Lunch

  Hurt, Sex, Healing

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• I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating

  Curtis Sittenfeld

  Writing, Special, Trying

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• You need music, I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.

  Jerry Garcia

  Life, Music, Power

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• There was no violence, no speed. It moved to the rhythm of an elder dance, putting all the rituals of the world to shame. Black, silver, gold and moon-opal, night and sea, fire, earth, air and water.

  Tanith Lee

  Moon, Night, Fire

  Tanith Lee (2015). “Black Unicorn”, p.44, Hachette UK

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• Sometimes I have experienced God in extraordinary ways - in dramatic surprises or soul-expanding insights or unexplainable mystical encounters. More often, I have felt God's reality in the simple encouragement of a friend, in the gentle inspiration of a sermon, or in the familiar ritual of the Eucharist and I'd be less than honest if I didn't also say that at times, I've found myself in the spiritual doldrums, cast adrift, wondering if the wind would ever blow again.

  Brian D. McLaren

  Spiritual, Encouragement, Inspiration

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• This world belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn't challenge the wolf to combat. Now, would that be wise? Would it?

  Ken Kesey

  Wise, Strong, Law

  Ken Kesey (2016). “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, p.33, Hamilton Books

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• To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word. He looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not.

  Elif Safak

  Prayer, Heart, Differences

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• Many of the rites of passage, those rituals of growing up found in our society, are in the form of such comic, practical joking affairs--which we ignore in the belief that they possess no deeper significance. Yet it is precisely in their being regarded as unimportant that they take on importance. For in them we ritualize and dramatize attitudes which contradict and often embarrass the sacred values which we proclaim through our solemn ceremonies and rituals of nationhood.

  Ralph Ellison

  Growing Up, Attitude, Our Society

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• I owe everything to the gift of Pentecost. For fifty days the facts of the Gospel were complete, but no conversions were recorded. Pentecost registered three thousand souls. It is by fire that a holy passion is kindled in the soul whereby we live the life of God. The soul's safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power.

  Samuel Chadwick

  God, Christian, Truth

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• Many of the religious apologists out there are not stupid people, they are often brilliant. People working in the field of theology and philosophy smart people everywhere. What they are those religious apologists are smart poeple who can build these amazingly intricate rationalizations for whatever weird practice they favor. Whether it's ritual cannibalism, or praying to spirits, or treating women as chattel. And they always building this on terrible shaky foundation of false premises.

  PZ Myers

  Religious, Philosophy, Smart

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• A pool game mixes ritual with geometry.

  Mary Karr

  Games, Pool, Geometry

  Mary Karr (2015). “The Liars' Club: Picador Classic”, p.279, Pan Macmillan

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• Parties are the nightly ritual of the sophisticated society.

  Dominick Dunne

  Party, Sophisticated

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• If I were to disclose all their rituals, I think that it would be easy to prove that witches are not diabolists; but the oaths are solemn and the witches are my friends. I would not want to hurt their feelings. They have secrets which to them are sacred. They have good reason for their secrecy.

  Gerald Gardner

  Hurt, Thinking, Feelings

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• A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and if one of the team cannot handle the forces, everybody is going to suffer. A ritual lodge is no place for the well-meaning ineffectual.

  Dion Fortune

  Team, Suffering, Stronger

  Dion Fortune (2016). “Psychic self-defense: The Classic Instruction Manual for Protecting Yourself Against Paranormal Attack”, p.85, Dion Fortune

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• No known human group... simply throw out its dead without any ritual or ceremony. In stark contrast, no animal practices burial of dead individuals of its own species.

  Theodosius Dobzhansky

  Animal, Practice, Groups

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• We should think of a photographer as a Samurai who makes rituals, moves and gestures in order to develop his techniques and his instinct.

  Alex Majoli

  Moving, Thinking, Order

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• A meal can be thought of as a ritual and a work of art, with limits laid down, desires aroused and fulfilled, enticements, variety, patterning and plot. As in a work of art, not only the overall form, but also the details matter intensely.

  Margaret Visser

  Art, Desire, Details

  Margaret Visser (2015). “The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners”, p.25, Open Road Media

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• What we need to be assured of is not that we possess an excellent system of doctrine and ritual, but that the gift of the Holy Spirit is a reality.

  Roland Allen

  Reality, Missionary, Doctrine

  Roland Allen (2012). “Missionary Principles and Practice”, p.78, The Lutterworth Press

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• I don't have a special place or ritual for writing songs, basically I write songs whenever an idea hits me, in my hotel room, on the road, in the plane.

  Kelly Jones

  Song, Writing, Ideas

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• Rituals are the end of fidelity and honesty, and the beginning of confusion.

  Laozi

  Honesty, Confusion, Taoism

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