"I really like books that you can kind of hear as much as think about, that are so graphic and visual."

“It's so easy to be undisciplined. And to be disciplined is so against my character, my general nature anyway, that I have to strain a little bit to keep on the right track.”

“Living up to other people's expectations is always difficult.”

“The very idea of true patriotism is lost, and the term has been prostituted to the very worst of purposes. A patriot, sir! Why, patriots spring up like mushrooms!”

“[On filling out a grant application:] I seek an extended period of time, free from all distractions, so that I might be free to be distracted.”

Source : Mary Ruefle (2012). “Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures”, p.137, Wave Books

“And Grace calls out, 'You are not just a disillusioned old man who may die soon, a middle-aged woman stuck in a job and desperately wanting to get out, a young person feeling the fire in the belly begin to grow cold. You may be insecure, inadequate, mistaken or potbellied. Death, panic, depression, and disillusionment may be near you. But you are not just that. You are accepted.' Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.”

“I think of myself as experimenting with different ways of structuring pieces. A lot of it has to do with the computer, of course.”

“I am definitely questioning the atonement and trying to discover how we can see it in a different way. We've got this image of God who needs some sort of flesh, some sort of blood, that needs some sort of vengeance to pay for sin. My experience of a loving God who's asked me to love my enemies - this isn't a God that demands something before you are accepted. I think Jesus died because Jesus was inclusive. God is inclusive. I think that the idea of God somehow being separated from us was more man's idea.”

Source : "Jay Bakker Talks Faith, Doubt and Where the Church Has Gone Wrong". Interview with Nicola Menzie, www.christianpost.com. February 14, 2013.

“I wish I felt energetic and could paint all the time, because there are so many paintings I'd like to do.”