John Sweeney Quotes

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

My hope is that 'Beyond the Heavens' will encourage people to explore faith, open their mind and go beyond what they think they know. That is what my mother encouraged me to do. I hope to encourage others to do the same through this story.

For what I wrote that started this whole controversy, I deserved to be criticized, and I felt bad about writing it. I felt bad mainly as a writer and a thinker.

I think that what happens for many Christians is, they accept their particular faith, they accept it to be true, and they stop examining it. Consequently, because it's already accepted to be true, they don't examine other people's faiths... That, I think, is not healthy for a person of any faith.

I was completely open to learning about different aspects of Scientology... and I believe in a lot of it.

Don't try to tear down other people's religion about their ears, Build up your own perfect structure of truth, and invite your listeners to enter in and enjoy it's glories.

The best compliment to a child or a friend is the feeling you give him that he has been set free to make his own inquiries, to come to conclusions that are right for him, whether or not they coincide with your own.

I still believe there is a lot of truth in Orthodox Judaism, but not the whole truth. Each person has his truth that he has to discover. You don't necessarily have to mold yourself to another idea of who you are.

When I grew up, I thought I was Jewish. Now I don't consider myself Jewish. I consider myself a Kabbalist.

There's a way I could have done things differently. I know that. If I offended anyone along the way, I do apologize.

I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.

When I started law school in 2010, I would have called myself an atheist. When I graduated law school in 2013, I was exploring my faith again. A lot changed in those three years.

I went to church when I was younger, but it was never something pushed down my throat or anything, which is a good thing. I found out for myself where I belonged.

I don't have a preferred religion - I'd have to do research. I was born a Christian, but as I've grown into my own man, I don't attach myself to a religion - 100 per cent, I have faith. Then it's locking into what suits me.

I don't pass myself off as a Bible scholar or a pastor or someone who knows all the biblical facts cover-to-cover. I'm just a guy whose life was changed by it. And that's about the extent of it. So I'm not easily offended when people struggle about where they're at with their faith at all.

I've said some things about other religions that I regret now. I think they were incorrect.

In the middle of the night, things well up from the past that are not always cause for rejoicing--the unsolved, the painful encounters, the mistakes, the reasons for shame or woe. But all, good or bad, give me food for thought, food to grow on.

Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways that he screwed up would make sense. He closes his eyes tightly. His life wasn't always a mistake, he thinks, and he breathes uncertainly for awhile, trying to find a pathway into unconsciousness, into sleep.

I should have been much more responsible in how I handled myself and for that am sorry.

You either learn your way towards writing your own script in life, or you unwittingly become an actor in someone else's script.

All the doors that I had to close. All the things I knew but I didn't know. Thank God for all I missed. 'Cause it led me here to this.

Of course, you could, no doubt, call my going to film school the biggest mistake I ever made.

I have liv'd long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for myself: I cannot change that Thing call'd Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all.

Looking at my life was very difficult. I think I learned that I haven't been as good a person as I'm inclined to think of myself as. I haven't been as good friend, haven't been as good a person, made a lot of mistakes.

He believed that he must, that he could and would recover the good things, the happy things, the easy tranquil things of life. He had made mistakes, but he could overlook these. He had been a fool, but that could be forgiven. The time wasted--must be relinquished. What else could one do about it? Things were too complex, but they might be reduced to simplicity again. Recovery was possible.