Brennan Quotes

My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.

Fear's useless. Either something bad happens or it doesn't: If it doesn't, you've wasted time being afraid, and if it does, you've wasted time that you could have spent sharpening your weapons.

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means.

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

I am in full possession of the amazing power of being sarcastic.

Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.

The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.

One of the lambs fixed its attention on Jared. “Baa,” it flirted. “Boo,” said Jared. “Oh my God, Jared. Don’t tough-talk the lambs.” "It was giving me a funny look.

Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.

Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others.

How glorious the splendor of a human heart that trusts that it is loved!

Lord, when I feel that what I'm doing is insignificant and unimportant, help me to remember that everything I do is significant and important in your eyes, because you love me and you put me here, and no one else can do what I am doing in exactly the way I do it.

We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.

The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.' 'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.

Real life is sometimes boring, rarely conclusive and boy, does the dialogue need work.

The Lynburns built this town on their blood and bones." "That was their first mistake," Jared said. "They should've built a city on rock and roll.

Listen to me. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what any of this means. But I know this much. It doesn’t matter. You’re not one of them. You never were. You’re not theirs. You’re mine.

Booth: "You're a smart ass, you know that?" Brennan: "Objectively I'd say I'm very smart, although it has nothing to do with my ass.

Been chatting much with Jared?" "We often have special moments where I come into a room and he immediately leaves," Kami said. "I treasure those times.

In Love's service, only wounded soldiers can serve.

Were knowledge all, what were our need To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

I read books, but I do it because I want to - because it's like an escape in my head, like being with you.

If I wasn't going to be a world-famous journalist and if I didn't have such respect for truth and justice, I could be an amazing master criminal.

Your soul is like the souls of a thousand monkeys on crack, all smushed together.

When a man or woman is truly honest, it is virtually impossible to insult them personally.

Put the jerk in the south wing, you won't see him for weeks at a time. Or lock him in the attic. The law will not be on your side, but literary precedent will.

I'm told I have the body of a god." "A Greek god, or one of those gods with the horse heads or elephant's legs coming out of their chests?" Alan asked. "Next time someone tells you that, ask them to specify.

You’re crazy,” said her best friend, Angela, as the bell rang to signal five minutes before the first class on the first day back at school. “They said that about all the great visionaries.” “You know who else they said it about?” Angela demanded. “All the actual crazy people.

Angela spared a glare for Kami, and then resumed her marathon glaring session at Jared. 'It's too weird. I'm going to call you Carl.' Jared scowled. 'I don't want you to call me Carl.' 'That's interesting, Carl,' said Angela, cheering up.

Jared told her he used to be an exotic dancer in San Francisco.' 'My body is a gift from God,' Jared said gravely. 'Except for my hips, which are clearly a gift from the devil.

Do the truth quietly without display.

Kami'd always retold her fairy tales to make the fair maidens braver and more self-sufficient, but she had never had any real objection to the handsome prince.

Being able to depend on someone doesn't mean you're dependent on them.

Nothing else ever mattered to me, and you weren’t even real. All I ever wanted was you.

I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery.

Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.

Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.

Why are you putting on lip gloss, my daughter?” Dad asked. “Trip to the library? Trip to the nunnery? I hear the nunneries are nice this time of year” … “Is this true, Kami? Are you going out on a date?” Dad asked tragically. “Wearing that? Wouldn’t you fancy a shapeless cardigan instead? You rock a shapeless cardigan, honey.

Poor animals, how jealously they guard their bodies, for to us is merely an evening’s meal, but to them is life itself.

The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can't save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient.

Some magicians are rich, some are famous, some are stupidly good-looking.' Jamie gave Nick a rather complicated look. Nick raised an eyebrow. 'Some of us manage to be stupidly good-looking on our own.

Hark,” he said, his tone very dry. “What stone through yonder window breaks?” Kami yelled up at him, “It is the east, and Juliet is a jerk!” Jared abandoned Shakespeare and demanded, “What do you think you’re doing?” “Throwing a pebble,” said Kami defensively. “Uh… and I’ll pay for the window.” Jared vanished and Kami was ready to start shouting again, when he reemerged with the pebble clenched in his fist. “This isn’t a pebble! This is a rock.” “It’s possible that your behaviour has inspired some negative feelings that caused me to pick a slightly overlarge pebble,” Kami admitted.

Friends don't menace friends with giant terrifying swords, okay?

Hark," he said, his tone very dry. "What stone through yonder window breaks?

The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.

You will never find me in trouble. You will find me in the library. If you can remember where that is.

What the hell is going on?" demanded Kami's dad, advancing with his black eyes snapping. Jared blurted, "My intentions are honourable." Kami sat up straight in her bed and stared in Jared's direction. "Are you completely crazy?" she wanted to know. "This isn't the eighteenth century. How do you think that's going to help?" "Well, I mean," Jared said, back against the wall like a cornered animal. "When we're older. I mean-" "Please shut up," Kami begged. "I agree with Kami," said Dad. "When you're in an abyss-like hole, quit digging.

Have a little faith in my magic fingers

Death in anonymity is the ultimate insult to human dignity.

we unwittingly project onto God our own attitudes and feelings toward ourselves... But we cannot assume that He feels about us the way we feel about ourselves -- unless we love ourselves compassionately, intensely, and freely.

I can try to wheedle information out of people," Holly offered. "For which I'll need a lower-cut top.

Hi," Kami said to Dorothy, the head librarian…"Can you tell me where I could find the books on Satanism?" Twenty minutes later, she had Dorothy convinced that it was for a school project, and she really did not have to telephone Kami's parents.

In two worlds," said Alan quietly, "there is nothing I love half as much as you.

What's going on with you? Jared asked out of the blue. Beginning a new era of journalistic history, Kami told him, sending her cheer through their connection. Also, to be perfectly honest, Angela and I were slapping our asses. As one does.

And about that," he continued. "Now that Kami and I have met, she likes me better than you. So you can leave.

I have changed my mind. You can help cook by standing in a corner and not touching anything. Do it carefully. -Nick to Jamie

My current verdict would be: Crazy Eyes. Nice Ass." "I think I want that on my tombstone.

Sorry-in-the-Vale, Sorriest River, Crying Pools," said Jared. "Is the quarry called Really Depressed Quarry?

Jared glared. Some people, Kami knew, had bedroom eyes. She was saddened to have to admit that Jared had filthy alleyway eyes.

I don't trust men everybody likes. Being nice isn't the same as being good.

The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor.

The Christ within who is our hope of glory is not a matter of theological debate or philosophical speculation. He is not a hobby, a part-time project, a good theme for a book, or a last resort when all human effort fails. He is our life, the most real fact about us. He is the power and wisdom of God dwelling within us.

Sometimes I want to be human for you.

None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge. Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.

The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency... God's sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed.

Turns out he does run," Nick drawled. "Given an incentive. And he wouldn't be so out of breath if he hadn't kept shrieking." "That was not a shriek," Jamie said with dignity. "It was a husky masculine cry of terror.

How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.

If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition.

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.

How do you deal with it?" Kami asked Jared. "The laughing at nothing and occasionally stopping dead in your tracks." "I have a system where when I stop, I lean casually against something," Jared told her. "It makes people think I'm a bad boy. Or possibly that I have a bad back.

Kami said, "I want you to go in there and vamp that receptionist." "What?" Ash said blankly. "You know," Kami said. "Dazzle her with your charms. Rock her world. Go on." [...] "What," Ash said, "all of us?" "Do you want to stand around trying to guess if she likes pretty boys or rough trade?" Jared asked, gesturing lazily from Ash to himself. "Excuse me, what did you just call yourself?" Ash demanded. "No, wait a second, I don't care. What did you just call me?

Who ever he is, I agree with your mother," said Dad as he entered the kitchen. "Stay away from him. Stay away from them all until you're of marrying age. Once you reach a nice, mature fifty-four, gentlemen callers will be welcomed here.

The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian.

For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened," He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love.

And he did not want to be loved as a second choice, as a surrender. He had spent his whole life not being loved at all, and he had thought being loved enough would satisfy him. It would not. He did not want to be loved enough. He wanted to be loved overwhelmingly. (...) He had never been chosen, so he had never had a chance to know this about himself before now: he wanted to be chosen first.

She clenched her fist in his T-shirt, put her other arm around those too-broad, too-real shoulders. When he tried to pull away, she held on tight. Kami felt the surrender in his mind a moment before he laid his face in the curve of her neck. The whole world was so real it hurt. Kami whispered into Jared's hair, "I'm always on your side.

A leather jacket,” Kami said as he shrugged into it. “Aren’t you trying a little too hard to play into certain bad boy clichés?” “Nah”, said Jared. “You’re thinking of black leather. Black leather’s for bad boys. It’s all in the color. You wouldn’t think I was a bad boy if I was wearing a pink leather jacket.” “That’s true,” Kami said. “What I would think of you, I do not know. So what does brown leather mean, then?” “I’m going for manly,” Jared said. “Maybe a little rugged.” “It’s bits of dead cow; don’t ask it to perform miracles.

Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be.

Well, speaking as a feminist, I'm glad that women can lead--uh, groups of unspeakable magical evil." "Yes," Alan said gravely. "It'd be shoking if the evil magicians were sexist. For one thing, that would mean they were stupid, and having stupid enemies would be a terrible blow to my manly pride.

Boys. Listen up. We are going out for a girls’ night, where there will be dancing.” Kami did an illustrative shimmy. Angela looked resigned. Jared looked amused. “What was that?” “You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watching, Jared,” Kami informed him. “Have you considered that perhaps nobody’s watching because they’re too embarrassed for you?” “Fine,” said Kami, grinning at him. “Be a hater of dances. Be a hater of joy. I don’t care. You’re not invited!

Lucky for you, I have another scheme. First I need a hundred ducks, but after that it will be pretty simple." "What do you need the ducks for?" "I´m going to put a whole bunch of them in a giant catapult and launch them over Aurimere," Kami said. "This will create a distraction. My message will be: Look at all the ducks I give.

I don't think you're weak," Jared said. "I want to guard you because you are important to me. Because you are - God, this is going to sound so stupid, I can never think of a way to say it - you are precious. I can never think of how to describe the value you have to me, because all the words for value suggest that you belong to me, and you don't.

To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.

The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.

Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school. 'But how?' we ask. Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith. My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.

Jared had his back to the wall, which Kami thought was a reflex when he was uncomfortable. She wanted to shield him. “He was doing some—Zen jogging,” she claimed. Jared flicked her an incredulous glance. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Zen jogging. I wasn’t wearing that many clothes because—that’s part of the process. You’re meant to commune with the elements. Normally, I wouldn’t have worn my jeans, but I put them on because I know the English are a modest people.

And Grace calls out, 'You are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted.' Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.

I was still alive. Ha! Take that kidnappers. Still alive. Maybe it was my butt that was feeding me. I always thought it was kind of round. I bet my body was eating up all the fat stores from my butt now. Yeah. See, having a big ass is a good thing. Good, good, good. They should put that in magazines. Why diet? Why stay thin? If you ever get kidnapped and left for dead, your fat ass could save your life!

His desperation and misery swept her up like a storm capturing the sea. She turned her mind to even these feelings, because they were his, like his terrified rage in the lift when they had first met, being wrapped in his arms in the cold well, being dazzled by his wonder at the woods and her home and her. Like being a child, awareness of him the morning chorus that woke her and the lullaby that sent her to sleep, his thoughts always her first and last song. I love you, Kami told him, and cut.

I-" said Nick, his voice halting. "I don't mind it as much when - when people touch me. Some people." Mae looked down, and Nick, who looked more relaxed when he'd been stabbed, slowly lifted his hand from his chest and laid it on the tumbled sheets between them, fingers half-curled into his palm. He was still regarding the ceiling with a fixed glare. "Because you trust them not to hurt you?" Mae asked tentatively. "No," Nick said, his voice harsh. "Because I'd let them hurt me.

Imagine that Jesus is calling you today. He extends a second invitation to accept His Father's love. And maybe you answer, "Oh, I know that. It's old hat." And God answers, 'No, that's what you don't know. You don't know how much I love you. The moment you think you understand is the moment you do not understand. I am God, not man. You tell others about Me - your words are glib. My words are written in the blood of My only Son. The next time you preach about My love with such obnoxious familiarity, I may come and blow your whole prayer meeting apart. Did you know that every time you tell Me you love Me, I say thank you?

The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of the pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and his promise.

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer. To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means. As Thomas Merton put it, "A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God." The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours not by right but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God. While there is much we may have earned--our degree and our salary, our home and garden, a Miller Lite and a good night's sleep--all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift, "If we but turn to God," said St. Augustine, "that itself is a gift of God." My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

He punched me in the face," Ash said, who understandably did not seem to find the situation humorous at all. "And then he yelled at me for sleeping with our personal trainer!" "I was told breakup scenes were a good way to distract people," Jared said with beautiful simplicity. "Ash looked so surprised," Holly said. "He had no idea what was going on. He said, 'I didn't sleep with our personal trainer! We don't even have a personal trainer!'" Angela and Holly giggled. Ash held the back of his hand to his bleeding mouth and glared. Jared was still grinning like a maniac. "In that case," he told Ash solemnly, "I will consider taking you back.

It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She is very big and she has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place, not very lively, and never gay. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.

Sometmes when you pull knives on people, they get this impression that you're going to hurt them, and then they're completely terrified. Crazy, I know!" "Okay," said Nick. He turned to Jamie & popped his left wrist sheath again. "Look." Jamie backed up. "Which part of 'completely terrified' did you translate as 'show us your knives, Nick'? Don't show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives." Nick rolled his eyes. "This is a quillon dagger. That's a knife with a sword handle. I like it because it has a good grip for stabbing." "Why do you say these things?" Jamie inquired piteously. "Is it to make me sad?" "I didn't have you cornered," Nick went on. "You could've run. And this dagger doesn't have an even weight distribution; it's absolute rubbish for throwing. If I had any intention of hurting you, I'd have used a knife I could throw." Jamie blinked. "I will remember those words always. I may try to forget them, but I sense that I won't be able to.

I don't care," Kami informed him. "All you are to me are sex objects that I choose to imagine bashing together at random. Oh, there you go again, look at that, nothing but Lynburn skin as far as the mind's eye can see. Masculine groans fill the air, husky and-" "Stop it," Ash said in a faint voice. "That isn't fair." Behind them, Jared was laughing. Kami glanced back at him and caught his eye: for once, it made her smile, as if amusement could still travel back and forth like a spark between them. "Ash is right, this is totally unfair," Jared told her. "If you insist on this-" "Oh, I do," Kami assured him. "Then I insist on hooking up with Rusty instead of Ash. It's the least you can do." "Ugh," Ash protested. "You guys, stop." "She's making a point," Jared said blandly. "I recognize her right to do that. But considering the alternative, I want Rusty." Ash gave this some thought. "Okay, I'll have Rusty too." The sound of the door opening behind them made them all look up the stairs to where Rusty stood, with one eyebrow raised. "Don't fight, boys," he remarked mildly. "There's plenty of Rusty to go around.