A Quote by H. G. Wells

[A novel by Henry James] is like a church lit but without a congregation to distract you, with every light and line focused on the high altar. And on the altar, very reverently place, intensely there, is a dead kitten, an egg-shell, a bit of string.

H. G. Wells

Quote Topics

Altar Bit Church Congregation Dead Distract Egg Every Focused Henry High Intensely James Kitten Light Like Line Lit Novel Place Shell String Very Without

Quote Author

H. G. Wells
English - Author
September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946

Easy believeism dishonors the blood and prostitutes the altar. We must alter the altar, for the altar is a place to die on. Let those who will not pay this price leave it alone!

Leonard Ravenhill

Some of us attend the church on the corner, professing to worship the living God above all. Others, who rarely darken the church doors, would say worship isn't a part of their lives because they aren't "religious." But everybody has an altar. And every altar has a throne.

Louie Giglio

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

Emma Goldman

When we place our discontented egos on the altar of gratitude, we develop contented altar egos filled with thanksgiving.

Craig Groeschel

There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering.

Cyprian

Our politicians have sacrificed their principles on the altar of special interests; our corporate leaders have sacrificed their integrity on the altar of profits; and our media watchdogs have sacrificed the voice of dissent on the altar of audience competition.

Cornel West

A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.

Alan Watts

You can't learn to write in college. It's a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do - and they don't. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don't want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who's the bore of all time.

Ray Bradbury

I liked teaching Henry James. When you look down at a Henry James novel from a helicopter height, you find an intricate spider web that all clings together.

Helen Vendler

I do not like a high-organized church. I think that as soon as the congregation reaches a level of one hundred or so people, it is time to build a new church. As soon as the congregation gets to the point where you are not on fairly intimate terms with every other person in that church, then you have become a theater where people can attend services. I do not think you can attend a church service. Service is not something which is there to be viewed as if it were a play or a movie.

Charles M. Schulz

One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that. …We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

Christine O'Donnell

A cloud of incense was rising on high; the people suddenly all bowed low; what could it mean? The truth flashed on him, fearfully yet sweetly; it was the Blessed Sacrament - it was the Lord Incarnate who was on the altar, who had come to visit and bless his people. It was the Great Presence, which makes a Catholic Church different from every other place in the world; which makes it, as no other place can be - holy.

John Henry Newman

Even if you're an agnostic or an atheist, you can create an altar, because an altar is simply paying homage to someone's life and celebrating what they did.

Sandra Cisneros

The original necessity for the ceaseless presence of the woman to maintain that altar fire - and it was an altar fire in very truth at one period - has passed with the means of prompt ignition; the matchbox has freed the housewife from that incessant service, but the feeling that women should stay at home is with us yet.