Ross Douthat Quotes

I was raised Catholic in Rockford, Illinois. But I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore. Oh God, no.

I'm sort of agnostic. I grew up Catholic and switched to Episcopalian in college because I sang in churches to have money to buy pizza and french fries.

In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for. A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere — "Bibles laid open, millions of surprises," as Herbert says, "fine nets and stratagems." God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.

Catholic, which I was until I reached the age of reason

I guess I always like being asked questions about influence or inspiration, like, "What are you reading? Who are your heroes? Is there any one person you want to shout out to now?" I really love paying it forward with love and attention, because that's what I like to read.

Invariably it turns out to be who you've been reading in the last couple of weeks, and two hours or two days [on favourite authors

One should never underestimate the power of books.

Most of my library consists of books on the Catholic faith: conversion stories, books on saints and Early Church Fathers, Apparitions of Mary, prayer books, Scriptural resource books on Apologetics, Typology, concordances, bible dictionaries, bible encyclopedias and at least 40 bibles - both Catholic and Protestant editions in several different translations.

I go to a Catholic school and I'm telling you: invisibility = eternal damnation. You can take it to the bank.

Everything which is good in me should be credited to books.

Almost all of my many passionate interests, and my many changes of mind, came through books. Books prompted the many vows I made to myself.

My father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I think in terms of the books I read.

Sebald, Naipaul, and Joyce are three of my biggest influences, all of them for their formal freedom and their ability to create mood. So those comparisons are immensely flattering and, of course, unearned.

My home base - pop music and the Catholic Church.

I was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist.

I still think about the writers I loved when I was a kid.

It is a greater joy to see the author's author, than himself.

My mother converted when I was 16. She was the driving force behind religion in our family. So, I'm sure I was heavily influenced by that. But, I also was, and still am, convinced by the Catholic churches historical claims to represent the continuity with the early Church that other forms of Western Christianity lack.

I always know it's Sunday because I wake up feeling apologetic. That's one of the cool things about being a Catholic . . . it's a multifaceted experience. If you lose the faith, chances are you'll keep the guilt, so it isn't as if you've been skunked altogether.

Learning about the intellectual basis for Christianity bolsters the faith of Christians-espe cially those who may be experiencing doubts-and prepares them to share Christ with others.

[ My mother] went, OK, I've read the Bible. I've read the Bible again. I'm reading the Bible again. OK, let me - where does this Bible come from? What does this Old Testament speak - who are the Israelites? Who - what is Judaism? And then she went, and I'm going to study that. And, you know, she wanted to almost get to the core.

Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.

Literary influences are harder for me to point to, because mostly it's a mulch of all of my past reading.

Very less to say, I can make one Catholic or Protestant.

I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.