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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
Tell
Finish
Character
Third
Take
Thirds
Writing
Particularly
Way
Easily
Characters
Novel
Write

More quotes by 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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I think the real problem for American religion are those minority of fundamentalists who try to identify political policies with religion.
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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It was generally believed that Catholics were not interested in arts and science graduate schools. They weren't going to be intellectuals. And so I put the theses to the test. And they all collapsed.
Andrew Greeley
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As the criminal, sinful war in Iraq enters its third year, the president goes to Europe to heal the wounds between the United States and its former allies, on his own terms of course.
Andrew Greeley
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I don't think Jesus was an exclusivist. He said, and we believe, that He is the unique representation of God in the world. But that doesn't mean this is the only way God can work.
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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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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There is good news in the data the strongest support for priests is to be found among the younger generation.
Andrew Greeley
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Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?
Andrew Greeley
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The Catholic men are more upset about women not being able to be priests than are Catholic women.
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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Is the patience of the American people that long suffering? Is there no outrage left in the country?
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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The highest love of all finds its fulfillment not in what it keeps, but in what it gives.
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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Nobody puts constraints on God. She doesn't like it.
Andrew Greeley
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Note the three most important Cabinet positions. Rice said that it was better to find the weapons of mass destruction than to see a mushroom cloud.
Andrew Greeley
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Angels represent God's personal care for each one of us.
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