Sarah Dessen Quotes

Writing reminds you of how much there is in your life that stands outside your explanations. In that way, it's almost a journey into faith and doubt at once.

Doubt is part of searching. Same as faith.

True belief is not about blind submission. It is about open-eyed acceptance, and acceptance requires persistent distance from the truth, and that distance is doubt. Doubt, in other words, can feed faith, rather than destroy it. And it forces us, even while believing, to recognize our fundamental duty with respect to God's truth: humility. We do not know. Which is why we believe.

I believe in God, but I'm not too clear on the other details.

Do you believe in God, doctor?" No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original.

Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.

The greatest part cannot know, and therefore they must believe.

I choose to believe in God, but I have serious doubts.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

We don't always possess faith in the sense of having a clear embodiment of something to hang on to. The relationship between the intellect and faith is a very curious one. Sometimes the intellect can point us to faith, sometimes the intellect can stand in the way of faith. Sometimes, as St John of the Cross points out, we have to darken or blind the intellect in order to have faith.

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

Mystery is a birthright of theology and faith, but you often do find religious people grasping for answers that shut things down and narrow what is possible.

It is easy to understand God as long as you don't try to explain him.

I guess I have a faith. I have an overriding feeling that all of this can't be for nothing. But then I also fully understand that it might be.

The word 'religion' is only a label. What lies behind that, the most important thing of all, is the word 'faith'. You either have faith, or you don't have faith, or you have degrees of faith - and if you have degrees of faith, then you become agnostic. You're kind of in-between, or you're on the fence.

Sometimes I have a hard time distinguishing between faith and hope.

I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education.

Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of unknowability.

Sometimes I really want to believe in God. I really admire, in a lot of ways, people who have faith. I think it must be a beautiful thing to believe.

But Charlie, Charlie, how can we ever really know anything? Charlie, what or who is God?

Well, I can't figure out God.

I asked God if it was a sin and He didn't say anything.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.