A friend of mine was married to an assistant church pastor who regularly beat her up. He was smart ?- he'd do it in a way that the bruises didn't show. For the longest time, she dealt with it. Who would believe the minister was a wife beater?! Meanwhile, my friend ? - An attorney! ? - Suffered in silence.
Martyrs, martyrs, martyrs,... we want a million martyrs to march on Jerusalem.
I'm a pastor of a local church. I'm not a televangelist. I've never had a televised program. I'm a pastor. A pastor's role is to care and comfort, encourage, teach, and everything that I do, even when I meet with world leaders, is from a pastor's heart.
There's no such thing as holding back. I want to finish as soon as possible. The only time I did it was because he was a friend of mine. It was against Thales Leites. We went until the last round because he's a friend of mine, and I respect him.
When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing. I told him I wanted to be a real Major League baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.
I saw a close friend of mine the other day. . . . He said, "Stephen, why haven't you called me?" I said, "I can't call everyone I want. My new phone has no five on it." He said, "How long have you had it?" I said, "I don't know . . . my calendar has no sevens on it."
Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.
Our basic fundamental desires are overly stimulated. A friend of mine said, "you have a generation of people that have been accidentally marketed to."
A friend of mine once said that there were only two truly national events in the history of the United States. One was the Civil War and the other one was the Depression.
He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.
The most important thing a pastor does is stand in a pulpit every Sunday and say, 'Let us worship God.' If that ceases to be the primary thing I do in terms of my energy, my imagination, and the way I structure my life, then I no longer function as a pastor.
Many years later, a psychiatrist friend of mine said something to us. He said, "Respect denial." It's a powerful force.
Tears may come and go,
But there's one thing I know.
All my life you're a friend of mine.
You can depend on me.
I'll be fine...
'Cause you're a friend of mine.
A friend of mine is a chef in Bali, and another friend said, 'God, he's like Brad Pitt,' and I said, 'Yeah, I think he's more like arm Pitt,' 'cause, you know, 'Brad Pitt' would be a bit of an overstatement.
O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being martyrs and confessors. One can see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs.
A friend of mine wrote a script, a feminist romantic comedy. She had a feminist scholar consult on it. My friend said, "Oh, my friend Gillian read it and really loved it." She goes, "Gillian Jacobs, you mean: Britta Perry, feminist icon?"