I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl’s kiss on your cheek.
Truth is a nebulous thing. There are certain, definite truths, but the truth of our lives goes far beyond facts.
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.
Just as art brings you to another place, so does religion – and to ask questions of factuality tends to reduce both. If you say you were inspired by a novel, that implies that your book is a work of fiction.
Fanatics do not have faith – they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.
Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.
To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.
A movie tends to box you in, at least as far as the aesthetics. You have an incredibly kinetic experience, which is the joy of cinema.
Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.
To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
I love cinema. I think the risk of the aesthetics being fixed is compensated by other advantages. Cinema is visually powerful, it is a complete experience, reaches different audience. It’s something I really like. I like movies.
Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love.
Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation. Which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction.
The presence of God is the finest of rewards.
I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.
Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud...
If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?
Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.
We commonly say in the trade that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.