Redemption Quotes

“Jesus is God's way of refusing to give up his dream for the world.”
― Rob Bell

“Sneering has gotten a bad rap, he thought, walking rapidly up the hill from his car. All that unleashed adrenaline got his legs pumping. Why is it that only villains are allowed to sneer? Surely such a display of disapproval could be used to better all humankind. If there was more sneering in the world, people might think before they acted.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“If Christ is God, He cannot sin, and if suffering was a sin in and by itself, He could not have suffered and died for us. However, since He took the most horrific death to redeem us, He showed us in fact that suffering and pain have great power.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“Seeing the pictures every evening while finishing the New York Times and waiting for dinner was his joy. Francine was unaware of his pleasure.  He could not reveal these feelings to the children or Francine. Silly. A father loves his children but can’t speak of it for fear of being made trivial.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“Ever since third grade you make mushroom clouds out of mushroom soup.”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“This is a class in American Literature and not an arena for extreme full-contact judo”
― Vincent Panettiere, Shared Sorrows

“[On Schopenhauer in Black and White] Schopenhauer's views of love are flawed. Love can't be merely an illusion of the mind to aid in procreation, but the path to redemption for an otherwise violently selfish species. Past human greatness has proven that when challenged, love can overpower impulsive instinct, and in essence, the vilest aspects of our nature.”
― Tiffany Madison

“It was suffering and incapacity that created all afterworlds - this, and that brief madness of bliss which is experienced only by those who suffer deeply.
Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Even there, in the mines, underground, I may find a human heart in another convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them, hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. [...] If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“You cannot mend the chromosome, quell the earthquake, or stanch the flood. You cannot atone for the dead tyrants’ murders and you alone cannot stop living tyrants. As Martin Buber saw it, the world of ordinary days “affords” us that precise association with god that redeems both us and our speck of world. God entrusts and allots to everyone an area to redeem: this creased and feeble life, “the world in which you live, just as it is, and not otherwise.” “Insofar as he cultivates and enjoys them in holiness, he frees their souls…he who prays and sings in holiness, eats and speaks in holiness…through him the sparks which have fallen will be uplifted, and the worlds which have fallen will be delivered and renewed.”
― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being: Essays

“Saving you is the only thing that will bring me peace for all the wrong I have done. That is my truth”
― Jillian Peery, TigerLily

“Is it possible to love someone so completely, so intensely, they could never die? To give them more than just your heart or your soul? What if you could give then the miracle of immortality?”
― Kellie Thacker, Grace

“Suffering comes to us as an interrogator. It asks, “Who are you?”
― David A. Fiensy, The Journey: Spiritual Growth in Galatians and Philippians

“Purification and redemption are such recurrent themes in ritual because there is a clear and ubiquitous need for them: we all do regrettable things as a result of our own circumstances, and new rituals are frequently invented in response to new circumstances.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“There's a certain amount of ambiguity in my background, what with intermarriages and conversions, but under various readings of three codes which I don’t much respect (Mosaic Law, the Nuremberg Laws, and the Israeli Law of Return) I do qualify as a member of the tribe, and any denial of that in my family has ceased with me. But I would not remove myself to Israel if it meant the continuing expropriation of another people, and if anti-Jewish fascism comes again to the Christian world—or more probably comes at us via the Muslim world—I already consider it an obligation to resist it wherever I live. I would detest myself if I fled from it in any direction. Leo Strauss was right. The Jews will not be 'saved' or 'redeemed.' (Cheer up: neither will anyone else.) They/we will always be in exile whether they are in the greater Jerusalem area or not, and this in some ways is as it should be. They are, or we are, as a friend of Victor Klemperer's once put it to him in a very dark time, condemned and privileged to be 'a seismic people.' A critical register of the general health of civilization is the status of 'the Jewish question.' No insurance policy has ever been devised that can or will cover this risk.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“The fragility of our era is this, too: we don’t believe that there is a chance for redemption; for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet. We need mercy.”
― Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy

“To be saved is here, local and mortal”
― A.R. Ammons

“There will be no redemption because the men who run this place do not want redemption. They want to be as near to hell as they can.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist

“Where but in the very asshole of comedown is redemption: as where but brought low, where but in the grief of failure, loss, error do we discern the savage afflictions that turn us around: where but in the arrangements love crawls us through”
― A.R. Ammons, Garbage

“Emma, if I had to march an eternity in slavery it would be worth it knowing that you are safe. They can bind my wrists and shackle my feet, but they can't take away my memories, my heart. If I had to see you grow old from a distance with someone else, it would have been worth it. I have had more than one lifetime to learn that our love can only come around once.”
― Rebecca Gober, Redemption

“No one but death the redeemer will humble that head.”
― Robinson Jeffers

“Every Saint has a past.
Every Sinner, has a future.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,
Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancell th’ old.

In heaven at his manour I him sought:
They told me there, that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.

I straight return’d, and knowing his great birth,
Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts:
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth

Of theeves and murderers: there I him espied,
Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died. ”
― George Herbert

“In life, redemption was walking up the down escalator: stop to congratulate yourself, and back you slid.”
― Amy Waldman, The Submission

“Dear Mr. Chance and Ms. Brattle. Sorry about the mess. Great bed. Loved it. As a matter of fact, loved the whole house. Actually, I tried to kill your kids when I found them here. Yeah, funny story. Maybe not funny, hah hah.’”
Astrid heard nervous laughter from the media people, or maybe just from the hotel staff who were hovering around the edges grabbing a glimpse of the Hollywood royalty.
“‘Anyway, I missed and they got away. I don’t know what will happen to Sanjit and that stick-up-his butt Choo and the rest, but whatever happens next, it’s not on me. However . . .’”
Astrid took a dramatic pause.
“‘However, the rest of what happened was on me. Me, Caine Soren. You’ll probably be hearing a lot of crazy stories from kids. But what they didn’t know was that it was all me. Me. Me me. See, I had a power I never told anyone about. I had the power to make people do bad things. Crimes and whatnot. Especially Diana, who never did anything wrong on her own, by her own will, I mean. She—and the rest of them—were under my control. The responsibility is on me. I confess. Haul me away, officers.’”
Astrid suddenly felt her throat tightening, although she’d read the letter many times already, and knew what it said. Rotten son of a . . . And then this.
Redemption. Not a bad concept.
Well, partial redemption.
“It’s signed Caine Soren. And below that, ‘King of the FAYZ.’”
It was a full confession. A lie: a blatant, not-very-convincing lie. But it would be just enough to make prosecutions very difficult. Caine’s role in the FAYZ, and the reality that strange powers had actually existed in that space, were widely known and accepted.
Of course Caine had enjoyed writing it. It was his penultimate act of control. He was manipulating from beyond the grave.”
― Michael Grant, Light

“It's hard. Being 15, 16, 17. You get so angry. You want to do something with that anger. I guess try to find some other way to let it out. Don't kill people. Don't kill yourself. Let yourself grow up a little. Then you might start to think differently about things. You might get new opportunities to do something with your life that you never thought possible as a teenager." -- Thomas Harvey from the upcoming novel, "Nikki White: Polar Extremes" (Nikki, #3)”
― Jack Chaucer, Nikki White: Polar Extremes

“Every Saint has a past.
Every Sinner has a future.”
― Oscar Wilde

“You must be excessively hungry, Mr. Merritt,” she said
graciously. Mademoiselle would have been so proud of her.
“Perhaps you are not a morning person?”
He smiled, finally bringing his devastating sky blue
morning gaze fully upon her face.
“I thought perhaps if I filled my mouth with biscuits, I
might keep my foot out of it for a while.”
― Mona Karel

“The only cure for suffering is to face it head on, grasp it round the neck and use it.”
― Brennan Manning, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus

“The miracle of redemption spreads like a leaven throughout the regions of the earth if properly strategized”
― Sunday Adelaja