Christian Bale Quotes

I have to return some videotapes

The only reason my wife agreed to marry me is because Christian Bale wasn’t around to propose to her.

Question for your life: Would you rather be the first female U.S. President, the first woman to walk on the moon, or the first woman to be courted by two clones who looked like Christian Bale?

There is a moment of sheer panic when I realize that Paul's apartment overlooks the park... and is obviously more expensive than mine.

Then there’s also Batman, who seems to have survived both Adam West and Christian Bale, but whose questionable relationship to the Boy Wonder left plenty of room for hilarious homoerotic undertones.

During my first few months of Facebooking, I discovered that my page had fostered a collective nostalgia for specific cultural icons. These started, unsurprisingly, within the realm of science fiction and fantasy. They commonly included a pointy-eared Vulcan from a certain groundbreaking 1960s television show. Just as often, though, I found myself sharing images of a diminutive, ancient, green and disarmingly wise Jedi Master who speaks in flip-side down English. Or, if feeling more sinister, I’d post pictures of his black-cloaked, dark-sided, heavy-breathing nemesis. As an aside, I initially received from Star Trek fans considerable “push-back,” or at least many raised Spock brows, when I began sharing images of Yoda and Darth Vader. To the purists, this bordered on sacrilege.. But as I like to remind fans, I was the only actor to work within both franchises, having also voiced the part of Lok Durd from the animated show Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It was the virality of these early posts, shared by thousands of fans without any prodding from me, that got me thinking. Why do we love Spock, Yoda and Darth Vader so much? And what is it about characters like these that causes fans to click “like” and “share” so readily? One thing was clear: Cultural icons help people define who they are today because they shaped who they were as children. We all “like” Yoda because we all loved The Empire Strikes Back, probably watched it many times, and can recite our favorite lines. Indeed, we all can quote Yoda, and we all have tried out our best impression of him. When someone posts a meme of Yoda, many immediately share it, not just because they think it is funny (though it usually is — it’s hard to go wrong with the Master), but because it says something about the sharer. It’s shorthand for saying, “This little guy made a huge impact on me, not sure what it is, but for certain a huge impact. Did it make one on you, too? I’m clicking ‘share’ to affirm something you may not know about me. I ‘like’ Yoda.” And isn’t that what sharing on Facebook is all about? It’s not simply that the sharer wants you to snortle or “LOL” as it were. That’s part of it, but not the core. At its core is a statement about one’s belief system, one that includes the wisdom of Yoda. Other eminently shareable icons included beloved Tolkien characters, particularly Gandalf (as played by the inimitable Sir Ian McKellan). Gandalf, like Yoda, is somehow always above reproach and unfailingly epic. Like Yoda, Gandalf has his darker counterpart. Gollum is a fan favorite because he is a fallen figure who could reform with the right guidance. It doesn’t hurt that his every meme is invariably read in his distinctive, blood-curdling rasp. Then there’s also Batman, who seems to have survived both Adam West and Christian Bale, but whose questionable relationship to the Boy Wonder left plenty of room for hilarious homoerotic undertones. But seriously, there is something about the brooding, misunderstood and “chaotic-good” nature of this superhero that touches all of our hearts.

I couldn’t but surmise that the devil, looking at the cruel wars that Christianity has occasioned, the persecutions, the tortures Christian has inflicted on Christian, the unkindness, the hypocrisy, the intolerance, must consider the balance sheet with complacency. And when he remembers that it has laid upon mankind the bitter burden of the sense of sin that has darkened the beauty of the starry night and cast a baleful shadow on the passing pleasures of a world to be enjoyed, he must chuckle as he murmurs: give the devil his due.

Directors tell me I should direct because the questions I am asking are the questions that they are asking rather than the questions that they expect to come from an actor. I do get that a lot. But there’s a great difference between being able to stand there and make suggestions when it ultimately doesn’t stop at you versus when it does. I think my issue with directing would probably be that I am kind of a loner. I like being responsible for myself.

cruel wars that Christianity has occasioned, the persecutions, the tortures Christian has inflicted on Christian, the unkindness, the hypocrisy, the intolerance, must consider the balance sheet with complacency. And when he remembers that it has laid upon mankind the bitter burden of the sense of sin that has darkened the beauty of the starry night and cast a baleful shadow on the passing pleasures of a world to be enjoyed, he must chuckle as

He’s not a superhero, he’s a vigilante. He’s just a rich bloke with cool toys. If Bane (he’s the pork chop with all the pipes coming out of his dust mask) can break Batman’s back, then what chance would he have against Superman? I mean, Batman versus Superman! What the hell is that all about? Bruce Wayne in a bat suit is no different to you or I, we would break a hand in multiple places if we punched Superman. Spiderman is a superhero and – as I’ve already said – my favourite of them all, but facts are facts. Spidey wouldn’t even get to quip, ‘Hey, over here red pants!’ before he was melted into red and blue jelly.  No. If you are Superman, then you are invincible and completely awesome. You can fucking fly. You get to shoot lasers out of your eyes, and see through shit. And you know the best part? The bit that most people don’t even think about? Just because you’re Superman doesn’t mean you have to dress like him.  If I were Superman, I would wear the Spiderman outfit by day (pretending to spin webs and climb walls etc.) and then switch to Batman at night (fighting crime, being cool and laughing – high pitched to piss the bad guys off, not like Christian Bale – while bullets bounced off me). Plus, who the hell would ever think about using Kryptonite on those two? No one.

What a contrast between the course of Isaac and that pursued by the youth of our time, even among professed Christians! Young people too often feel that the bestowal of their affections is a matter in which self alone should be consulted—a matter that neither God nor their parents should in any wise control. Long before they have reached manhood or womanhood they think themselves competent to make their own choice, without the aid of their parents. A few years of married life are usually sufficient to show them their error, but often too late to prevent its baleful results. For the same lack of wisdom and self-control that dictated the hasty choice is permitted to aggravate the evil, until the marriage relation becomes a galling yoke. Many have thus wrecked their happiness in this life and their hope of the life to come. If there is any subject which should be carefully considered and in which the counsel of older and more experienced persons should be sought, it is the subject of marriage; if ever the Bible was needed as a counselor, if ever divine guidance should be sought in prayer, it is before taking a step that binds persons together for life.

I just wanted to fade into the background. Be invisible. Disappear.

Now Kant apparently intends these antinomies to constitute an essential part of the argument for his transcendental idealism, the doctrine that things we deal with (stars and planets, trees, animals and other people) are transcendentally ideal (depend upon us for their reality and structure), even if empirically real. We fall into the problem posed by antinomies, says Kant, only because we take ourselves to be thinking about things in themselves as opposed to the things for us, noumena as opposed to mere appearances...We solve the problem by recognizing our limitations, realizing that we can't think, or can't think of any real purpose, about the Dinge...I want to turn to the fatal objection. That is just that all the antinomical arguments are not at all compelling. Here I will argue this only for the premises of the first antinomy, exactly similar comments would apply to the others. In the first antinomy, there is an argument for the conclusion that 'The world had a beginning in time and is also limited as regards to space' (A426, B454); this is the thesis. There is also an argument for the antithesis: 'The world had no beginning, and no limits in space; it is infinite as regards both time and space' (A426, B454). And the idea...is that if we can think about and refer to the Dinge, then both of these would be true or would have overwhelming intuitive support...(Regarding the antitheis) In an empty time (a time at which nothing exists) nothing could come to be, because there would be no more reason for it to come to be at one part of that empty time than at any other part of it...The objection is that there would have been no more reason for God to create the world at one moment than at any other; hence he wouldn't or couldn't have created it at any moment at all. Again, why believe this?...This argument is like those arguments that start from the premise that God, if he created the world, he would have created the best world he could have; and they go on to add that for every world God could have created (weakly actualized, say) there is an even better world he could have created or weakly actualized; therefore, they conclude, he would have weakly actualized any world at all, and the actual world has not been weakly actualized by God. Again, there seems no reason to believe the first premise. If there were only finitely many worlds among which God was obliged to choose, the perhaps he would have been obliged somehow, to choose the best (although even this is at best dubious). But if there is no best world at all among those he could have chosen (if for every world he could have chosen, there is a better world he could have chosen), why think a world failing to be the best is sufficient for God's being unable to actualize it? Suppose a man had the benefit of immortality and had a bottle of wine that would improve every day, no matter now long he waits to drink it. Would he be rationally obligated never to drink it, on the ground that for any time he might be tempted to, it would be better yet the next day? Suppose a donkey were stranded exactly midway between two bales of hay: would it be rationally obliged to stay there and starve to death because there is no more reason to move the one bale than the other?

Being boring is a sin. It doesn’t matter if you mess up; at least you’re trying something different

A group of Christian Bale doppelgängers, The Machinist Bales, not the Batman Bales, lounge on the corner of the street. Drug addicts. Drug fiends sit with noon and needles. The noon, the “bread” is naked, there in the middle for mere show.

She glares at me balefully, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you insane? Have you lost your fucking mind?” “Better not curse so much in front of my father. He’s a republican. And a Christian.

This argument is like those arguments that start from the premise that God, if he created the world, he would have created the best world he could have; and they go on to add that for every world God could have created (weakly actualized, say) there is an even better world he could have created or weakly actualized; therefore, they conclude, he would have weakly actualized any world at all, and the actual world has not been weakly actualized by God. Again, there seems no reason to believe the first premise. If there were only finitely many worlds among which God was obliged to choose, the perhaps he would have been obliged somehow, to choose the best (although even this is at best dubious). But if there is no best world at all among those he could have chosen (if for every world he could have chosen, there is a better world he could have chosen), why think a world failing to be the best is sufficient for God's being unable to actualize it? Suppose a man had the benefit of immortality and had a bottle of wine that would improve every day, no matter now long he waits to drink it. Would he be rationally obligated never to drink it, on the ground that for any time he might be tempted to, it would be better yet the next day? Suppose a donkey were stranded exactly midway between two bales of hay: would it be rationally obliged to stay there and starve to death because there is no more reason to move the one bale than the other?

Even Patrick Bateman, Christian Bale’s self-loving, unhinged character in the film adaptation of American Psycho, is not representative of a true psychopath, as he is too violent to be realistic. These are caricatures—even the most violent criminals are rarely so obviously insane.

In a part of early Christian memory, based on an evident forgery whose genesis cannot be investigated or traced here, a gnawing, corrosive, tenaciously anti-Semitic drive took root, which no exegetic acrobatics could possibly diminish: a deep well of poison that would be transmitted, intact and baleful, down the centuries, preserved in the heart of a memory that became increasingly precious and untouchable.

It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.

Strangest of all is Christian Bale as Moses, raised in the Egyptian royal court as a brother to Ramses and blind to his true heritage. Eventually, of course, Moses discovers his Jewish roots, which means that he stops shaving, starts herding goats and, unless my ears deceive me, takes to peppering his speech with stagy old-man Yiddish inflections, as though preparing to lead his people from the fleshpots of Egypt into a borscht belt Canaan. You think this desert is dry? You should try my wife’s brisket.

Etymologically, paroikia (a compound word from para and oikos) literally means “next to” or “alongside of the house” and, in a technical sense, meant a group of resident aliens. This sense of “parish” carried a theological context into the life of the Early Church and meant a “Christian society of strangers or aliens whose true state or citizenship is in heaven.” So whether one’s flock consists of fifty people in a church which can financially sustain a priest or if it is merely a few people in a living room whose priest must find secular employment, it is a parish. This original meaning of parish also implies the kind of evangelism that accompanies the call of a true parish priest. A parish is a geographical distinction rather than a member-oriented distinction. A priest’s duties do not pertain only to the people who fill the pews of his church on a Sunday morning. He is a priest to everyone who fills the houses in the “cure” where God as placed him. This ministry might not look like choir rehearsals, rector’s meetings, midweek “extreme” youth nights, or Saturday weddings. Instead, it looks like helping a battered wife find shelter from her abusive husband, discretely paying a poor neighbor’s heating oil bill when their tank runs empty in the middle of a bitter snow storm, providing an extra set of hands to a farmer who needs to get all of his freshly-baled hay in the barn before it rains that night, taking food from his own pantry or freezer to help feed a neighbor’s family, or offering his home for emergency foster care. This kind of “parochial” ministry was best modeled by the old Russian staretzi (holy men) who found every opportunity to incarnate the hands and feet of Christ to the communities where they lived. Perhaps Geoffrey Chaucer caught a glimpse of the true nature of parish life through his introduction of the “Parson” in the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. Note how the issues of sacrifice, humility, and community mentioned above characterize this Parson’s cure even when opportunities were available for “greater” things: "There was a good man of religion, a poor Parson, but rich in holy thought and deed. He was also a learned man, a clerk, and would faithfully preach Christ’s gospel and devoutly instruct his parishioners. He was benign, wonderfully diligent, and patient in adversity, as he was often tested. He was loath to excommunicate for unpaid tithes, but rather would give to his poor parishioners out of the church alms and also of his own substance; in little he found sufficiency. His parish was wide and the houses far apart, but not even for thunder or rain did he neglect to visit the farthest, great or small, in sickness or misfortune, going on foot, a staff in his hand… He would not farm out his benefice, nor leave his sheep stuck fast in the mire, while he ran to London to St. Paul’s, to get an easy appointment as a chantry-priest, or to be retained by some guild, but dwelled at home and guarded his fold well, so that the wolf would not make it miscarry… There was nowhere a better priest than he. He looked for no pomp and reverence, nor yet was his conscience too particular; but the teaching of Christ and his apostles he taught, and first he followed it himself." As we can see, the distinction between the work of worship and the work of ministry becomes clear. We worship God via the Eucharist. We serve God via our ministry to others. Large congregations make it possible for clergy and congregation to worship anonymously (even with strangers) while often omitting ministry altogether. No wonder Satan wants to discredit house churches and make them “odd things”! Thus, while the actual house church may only boast a membership in the single digits, the house church parish is much larger—perhaps into the hundreds as is the case with my own—and the overall ministry is more like that of Christ’s own—feeding, healing, forgiving, engaging in all the cycles of community life, whether the people attend

the art of survival is a story that never ends

No. If you are Superman, then you are invincible and completely awesome. You can fucking fly. You get to shoot lasers out of your eyes, and see through shit. And you know the best part? The bit that most people don’t even think about? Just because you’re Superman doesn’t mean you have to dress like him. If I were Superman, I would wear the Spiderman outfit by day (pretending to spin webs and climb walls etc.) and then switch to Batman at night (fighting crime, being cool and laughing – high pitched to piss the bad guys off, not like Christian Bale – while bullets bounced off me). Plus,

New so big that it should be shouted by Christian Bale in Newsies" - Athena

News so big that it should be shouted by Christian Bale in Newsies" -Athena

...but I had my own news. News so big that it should be shouted by Christian Bale in Newsies" -Athena

You were supposed to leave tonight,” I remind her when we get through the door. Sam’s already here, and I lock the deadbolt behindus. “I’ll stay tonight,” she mumbles, eyelids heavy. “Do you need to call about your flight?” “No. I never scheduled a return flight. I was going to today. The driver…no, the flyer…the…the…” “Pilot.” “Yeah. That guy. He was going to pick me up whenever I was ready.” She scrunches up her nose. “I sound like a rich asshole, don’tI?” “You’re basically Bruce Wayne when he’s trying to convince the world he’s still a billionaire playboy and not a superhero.” “Damn,” she says, not missing a beat. “Hopefully I’m giving more of a Christian Bale performance over Ben Affleck.” “It’s Oscar-worthy.

THERMOGRAPHY Misinformation abounds as to the true nature of breast cancer and what causes it. With so much public focus on breast cancer awareness, very little attention is given to breast health, which we know is governed by things like clean eating, routine detoxification, energy balance, and stress reduction, among other things. These other things include not blasting radiation at the breasts in the form of mammograms, which only exacerbate breast cancer risk. Dr. Martin Bales, L.Ac., D.A.O.M., a licensed acupuncturist and certified thermologist at the Center for New Medicine in Irvine, California, has for years been administering one of the best-known alternatives to mammograms: thermograms. As its name suggests, thermography utilizes the power of infrared heat—hence the root word “therm”—to detect physiological abnormalities indicative of a possible breast cancer diagnosis. Dr. Bales’s father first pioneered the technology in the late 1970s with the development of the world’s first all-digital infrared camera, which was used for missile detection purposes during wartime. Its capacity to track the heat signature of missiles was applied to the field of medicine in the 1980s, which eventually gave way to thermographic medical devices. Dr. Bales opined during a recent interview: “In the early eighties, a group of doctors approached my father and said, ‘You know, we’ve heard the body—obviously with its (blood) circulation—we can diagnose a lot of diseases by seeing where there’s hot spots and where there’s cold.’ He said, ‘Okay, I’ll make a medical version for you.’” And the rest is history: thermography machines that identify hot spots in the breasts later hit the market, and select doctors and clinics offer it as a safe, side effect–free alternative to mammograms. “The most promising aspect of thermography is its ability to spot anomalies years before mammography,” says women’s health expert Christiane Northrup, M.D., about the merits of thermography. “With thermography as your regular screening tool, it’s likely that you would have the opportunity to make adjustments to your diet, beliefs, and lifestyle to transform your cells before they became cancerous. Talk about true prevention.