Gerald Sittser Quotes

#1. My prayer as you read this book is that you will find comfort for the disappointment of unanswered prayer, but also courage to continue on the epic journey that prayer is.

Gerald L. Sittser

#2. It is how we respond to loss that matters. That response will largely determine the quality, the direction, and the impact of our lives.

Gerald L. Sittser

#3. Regret is ... an unavoidable result of any loss, for in loss we lose the tomorrow that we needed to make right our yesterday or today.

Gerald Lawson Sittser

#4. Loss is like a closed road that forces us to turn around and find another way to our destination. Who knows what we will discover and see along the way.

Gerald Lawson Sittser

#5. Parents are excellent at stating the obvious.

Stephanie Perkins

#6. Although unanswered prayer is indeed a theme of the book, it is not the heart of the book, for unanswered prayer describes a problem but offers no solutions.

Gerald L. Sittser

#7. If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage.

Sam Altman

#8. The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.

Gerald L. Sittser

#9. The best thing in the world for each of us is that which we can best do, because it gives us the feeling of being useful. That's happiness.

Pearl S. Buck

#10. I see now that my faith was becoming an ally rather than an enemy because I could vent anger freely, even toward God, without fearing retribution.

Gerald L. Sittser

#11. Oh, let me love with all my power all the way.
Let me love like stars love the moon rest of my day.

Debasish Mridha

#12. The good that may come out of the loss does not erase its badness or excuse the wrong done. Nothing can do that.

Gerald L. Sittser

#13. I had no way of anticipating the adjustments I would have to make and the suffering I would have to endure in the months and years ahead.

Gerald L. Sittser

#14. How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and evenly coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate!

Nathaniel Hawthorne

#15. But life here is not the end. Reality is more than we think it to be. There is another and greater reality that envelops this earthly one. Earth is not outside heaven, as the philosopher Peter Kreeft wrote; it is heaven's workshop, heaven's womb.

Gerald L. Sittser

#16. Van Dusen emphasizes that our common conception of the mentally ill is flawed. The majority of them, he says, are not "raving lunatics" as one might think. "Most of these people have become entangled in inner processes and simply fail to manage their lives well.

Louis Proud

#17. Winners win in life because they win the battle in their mind first!

Tony Gaskins

#18. Loss provides an opportunity to take inventory of our lives, to reconsider priorities, and to determine new directions.

Gerald Lawson Sittser

#19. The central theme of the book is that prayer is best understood as a long, sometimes perilous, epic journey that eventually leads to triumph.

Gerald L. Sittser

#20. The purpose of pure science is to observe phenomena and to trace their laws; the purpose of art is to produce, modify, or destroy. Strictly speaking there is no such thing as applied science, for, the moment the attempt is made to apply, science passes into the realm of art.

Joseph William Mellor

#21. Just because it isn't perfect, doesn't mean it isn't awesome.

M.R. Mathias

#22. Seek the Lord while you must.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#23. I wish I could give up smoking, but it does taste so delicious.

Caitlin Moran

#24. Nothing, except the weather report or a general maxim of conduct, is so unsafe to rely upon as a theory of fiction.

Ellen Glasgow

#25. I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am.

Gerald L. Sittser

#26. The book is intended to show how it is possible to live in and be enlarged by loss, even as we continue to experience it.

Gerald L. Sittser

#27. Prayer is the one discipline in the Christian faith that makes us feel entirely dependent on God and thus sets us up for profound disappointment when God doesn't respond to our needs and requests.

Gerald L. Sittser

#28. Some of you read with me 40 years ago a portion of Aristotle's Ethics, a selection of passages that describe his idea of happiness. You may not remember too well.

Charles Van Doren

#29. When conflicts end non-violently, it's more likely that the result will be longer-lasting, democratic societies.

Julia Bacha