William Gaddis Quotes

It is true that the Chinese are not so religious as the Hindus, or even as the Japanese; and they are certainly not so religious as the Christian missionaries desire them to be.

I always had a problem with original sin; I always had a problem with the exclusivity of the church and a lot of the things that the nuns taught me.

I was born a Catholic and now I'm a lapsed Catholic. I'm something but I'm not a believer any more.

The first time someone tried to share the Gospel with me, I naively explained that I was Jewish and born in Israel, thank you... This was a big mistake. In certain parts of Christian America, admitting I was an Israeli-born Jew turned me into walking catnip.

Much of the misgiving that Muslims feel for the West stems from our strong emphasis on freedom, always a risky enterprise. I've heard some say they would rather rear their children in a closely guarded Islamic society than in the United States, where freedom so often leads to decadence.

I was very curious about the world even at a young age, and I don't know at what point I became aware that other cultures believed in different religions, and my question was, 'Well, why don't they get to go to Heaven then?'

You send missionaries among us to teach us your ways, and when we do so, we meet immovable discrimination.

This present race of Indians will never be converted. It mattereth not whether they kill one another off or if somebody else does it. And as for our sending missionaries among them to convert them, it is of no use

Only a few years after the permanent settlement of Virginia, some fifty missionaries arrived to begin the massive task of converting the heathen. The Indians on their part, did not respond with alacrity to the idea of adopting a culture that to them, in many cases, seemed barbarous, indeed.

Mother Teresa was part of a conspiracy to convert Hindus to Christianity.

We know all their gods; they ignore ours. What they call our sins are our gods, and what they call their gods, we name otherwise.

We went to a church that had missionaries who'd come back once a year from Fiji & give talks. I remember one of them saying it was very hard work telling people they were going to lose their everlasting souls if they didn't shape up. I pictured people sitting on the beach listening to this sweaty man all dressed in black telling them they were going to burn in hell & them thinking this was good fun, these scary stories this guy was telling them & afterwards, they'd all go home & eat mango & fish & they'd play Monopoly & laugh & laugh & they'd go to bed & wake up the next day & do it all again.

The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget, perhaps, that his religion forbade the accumulation of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury... Furthermore, it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of his skill and success with his less fortunate brothers. Thus he kept his spirit free from the clog of pride, cupidity, or envy, and carried out, as he believed, the divine decree-a matter profoundly important to him.

We are greatly conscious of the fact that among the Lamanites - as well as among all peoples of other countries - we have a responsibility to see that the gospel touches their hearts and minds and that they understand it.

There is no Thanksgiving back in the old country where I come from. You know why? Because being thankful is a sin.

How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?

We are now going to the Lamanites, to whom we intend to be messengers of instruction... We will show them that in consequence of their transgressions a curse has been inflicted upon them - in the darkness of their skins. We will have intermarriages with them, they marrying our young women, and we taking their young squaws to wife. By these means it is the will of the Lord that the curse of their color shall be removed and they restored to their pristine beauty.

One of the reasons the Europeans don't like the Muslims is because they are religious. Americans like the fact that they are religious. They just don't like the form it takes.

Why do we complain about the Fall? It is not on its account that we were expelled from Paradise, but on account of the Tree of Life, lest we might eat of it.

There is only one Church, and the responsibility for missionary work is universal. 'Every member a missionary.'

Evangelizing includes the endeavor to elicit a response to the truth taught.

Those who would assail the Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur'an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply enjoy the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and are thus much harder to refute.

I'm proud, and Islam did it. And after these things that I heard in church, a preacher and watching this and that, I knew something was wrong but I couldn't pinpoint it.

. . . it is difficult for Europeans to appreciate the sentiment. Other nations kill animals by wholesale and kill one another; they exist in a sea of blood. A European said that the reason why in India animals were not killed was because it was supposed that they contained the spirits of ancestors. This reason was worthy of a savage nation who are not many steps from the brute.

Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die.