Quote

I write easily, let's put it that way. And in a novel particularly, the characters take over. And they tell me what to say and they tell me what they're doing. And I'm a third of the way into a novel and then I just let the characters finish it for me.

Andrew Greeley

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Andrew Greeley
Age: 85 †
Born: 1928
Born: February 5
Died: 2013
Died: May 29
Catholic Priest
Journalist
Novelist
Priest
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Oak Park
Illinois
Andrew M. Greeley
Andrew Moran Greeley
Way
Easily
Characters
Novel
Write
Tell
Finish
Character
Third
Take
Thirds
Writing
Particularly

More quotes by Andrew Greeley

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Search for the perfect church if you will when you find it, join it, and realize that on that day it becomes something less than perfect.
Andrew Greeley
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An adolescent is somebody who is in between things. A teenager is somebody who's kind of permanently there. And so living with them through the various teenage hopes and sorrows and joys was curiously enough a maturing experience for me.
Andrew Greeley
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People came into the Church in the Roman Empire because the Church was so good-Catholics were so good to one another, and they were so good to pagans, too. High-pressure evangelization strikes me as an attempt to deprive people of their freedom of choice.
Andrew Greeley
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When I can go just where I want to go, There is a copse of birch trees that I know And, as in Eden Adam walked with God, When in that quiet aisle my feet have trod I have found peace among the silver trees, Known comfort in the cool kiss of the breeze Heard music in its whisper, and have known Most certainly that I was not alone!
Andrew Greeley
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My songs will pass and be forgotten. What counts, however, is that I sang them.
Andrew Greeley
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The kernel is the belief that God is love and, in Catholicism, God's love is present in the world. It is in the sacraments, in the Eucharist, in our families, in our friends, in our neighborhood, and forgiveness in the touch of a friendly hand, in a rediscovered love God is there.
Andrew Greeley
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I think the only kind of acceptable evangelization is the evangelization of good example.
Andrew Greeley
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Yet, if the most frequent sex and apparently the best sex is that between married partners who are faithful to one another, is there not a hint that affection might be an important aspect of sex? Even love?
Andrew Greeley
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The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.
Andrew Greeley
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If we get you in the early years of your life and we fill your head with all of the Catholic stories, then it's very hard for you to stop being Catholic. Catholics are Catholics because they like being Catholic.
Andrew Greeley
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If there is not laughter in intimacy, it becomes heavy, burdensome, and dull. At my best moments, the love dialogue I try to carry on with You each day is comic-what could be more comic than a human addressing the Ground of Being as an intimate? It's a kind of blasphemy that I dare because you have called for it, and that is pretty humorous, too.
Andrew Greeley
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We are born with two incurable diseases, life, from which we die, and hope, which says maybe death isn't the end.
Andrew Greeley
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Practically speaking, your religion is the story you tell about your life.
Andrew Greeley
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The seminaries must face the fact that they are not turning out well-trained professional clergy. They must realize that preaching is creative work and that some element of creativity should be required as a condition for ordination.
Andrew Greeley
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God draws straight with crooked lines.
Andrew Greeley
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We're given second chances every day of our life. We don't usually take them, but they're there for the taking.
Andrew Greeley
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Since the end of the World War II, the United States has fought three small wars...we lost all three of them and for the same reason-hubris.
Andrew Greeley
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I have terrible handwriting. I now say it's a learning disability... but a nun who was a very troubled woman hit me over the fingers with a ruler because my writing was so bad.
Andrew Greeley
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Priest organizations around the country, both local and national, should realize that their membership has a serious image problem and undertake programs to improve it.
Andrew Greeley
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One cannot escape the harsh fact that as a ministerial profession, the priesthood has very serious problems. They are not new. They did not develop yesterday or last year.
Andrew Greeley