Countee Cullen Quotes

In particular, I found praying very disturbing, like swimming with bricks tied to your feet. And yet I was drawn to it constantly.

I did spend a lot of time as a child very confused about whether I had a devil in me, or whether I was in a state of grace. I mean, these ideas are so potent to anybody with half an imagination.

I want to be a good person. I don't want to fail. I want to learn from my mistakes, rid myself of distractions, and run into the arms of Jesus. Most of the time, however, I feel like I am running away from Jesus into the arms of my own clutteredness.

As we hang beneath the heavens, and we hover over hell, our hearts become the instruments we learn to play so well.

Because if I let myself feel the pain and the anger, I think it might kill me. Or I might kill someone else. I know it's wrong to feel that way about God and I know its's wrong to not feel anything. I hate it. I don't hate God. I hate not loving Him.

I am hopelessly divided between the dark and the good, the rebel and the saint, the sex maniac and the monk, the poet and the priest, the demagogue and the populist. Pen to paper, I put it all down - I'm out on a limb here, so watch my back.

God, how I ricochet between certainties and doubts.

I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.

I've always been at war with myself, for right or wrong.

All around me insisted that my doubts proved only my own ignorance and sinfulness; that they knew by experience they would soon give place to true knowledge, and an advance in religion; and I felt something like indecision.

I am the epitome of a walking contradiction for various reasons, only one of which being that I feel my existence is of heaven and hell.

I had often sought for the peace there is in Christ, but I could not seem to find the freedom I desired. A terrible sadness rested on my heart. I could not think of anything I had done to cause me to feel sad; but it seemed to me that I was not good enough to enter Heaven, that such a thing would be altogether too much for me to expect.

I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall convert me? Who, what, is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief?

One of the things that I really enjoyed playing with Ender was how he's constantly struggling between his brother and his sister. It's like he's got two sides to him. And I've always wanted to play a darker character, and in this film and in the novel, Ender has his moments where he isn't a glorified hero.

Religion has stayed with me even though I rebelled.

You know, a lot of people give up their religion, but, oh, my goodness, they go through such agonies. I never did.

I relate to Michael Keaton's character in 'Birdman' so much, how he has that voice being so mean and then another boosting his confidence.

…I hate myself for not being able to go downstairs naturally and seek comfort in numbers. I hate myself for having to sit here and be torn between I know not what within me.

I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.

Do I believe? God only knows.

And sometimes when you're very mixed-up inside, you do things you know you shouldn't do.

It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.

Was this a betrayal, or was it an act of courage? Perhaps both. Neither one involves forethought: such things take place in an instant, in an eyeblink. This can only be because they have been rehearsed by us already, over and over, in silence and darkness; in such silence, such darkness, that we are ignorant of them ourselves. Blind but sure-footed, we step forward as if into a remembered dance.