27 quotes
The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger coincide.
Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (1973)
Words spoken in deep love or deep hate set things in motion within the human heart that can never be reversed.
Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons (2006)
What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.
Godric (1980)
One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.
Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (1973)
If the truth is worth telling, it is worth making a fool of yourself to tell.
Telling the Truth (1977)
Sin and grace, absence and presence, tragedy and comedy, they divide the world between them and where they meet head on, the Gospel happens.
Telling the Truth (1977)
Grace is something you can never get but only be given.
Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith (1979)
Nothing human's not a broth of false and true.
Godric (1980)
It’s less the words they say than those they leave unsaid that split old friends apart.
Godric (1980)
The past is the place we view the present from as much as the other way around.
Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)
'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief' is the best any of us can do really, but thank God it is enough.
The Magnificent Defeat (1966)
Faith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide us but a hand just beyond our grasp.
The Magnificent Defeat (1966)
God himself does not give answers. He gives himself.
Telling the Truth (1977)
Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.
With words as valueless as poker chips, we play games whose object it is to keep us from seeing each other’s cards.
The Alphabet of Grace (1970)
This side of Nirvana, there is no such escape for any of us as far as I know.
Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)
If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it - I mean really asked, expecting an answer.
The Magnificent Defeat (1966)
Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.
Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner (1992)
You can survive on your own; you can grow strong on your own; you can prevail on your own; but you cannot become human on your own.
The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days (1982)
Five friends I had, and two of them snakes.
Godric (1980)