Robert Farrar Capon Quotes - Page 2

Heaven is populated entirely by forgiven sinners

Do you seriously envision St. Paul or Calvin or Luther opening bottles of Welch's Grape Juice in the sacristy before the service? Luther at least would turn over in his grave.

The truth that makes us free is always ticking away like a time-bomb in the basement of everybody's church.

The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of trolls.

...we are saved by Christ alone who raises us from the dead - from the absolution of our death. We come before him at the judgement with no handwriting whatsoever against us. It's simply cheating to say you believe that and then renege on it by postulating some list of extra-rotten crimes for which Christ has to send you to hell. He, the universal Redeemer, is the only judge; as far as he's concerned, the only mandatory sentence is to life and life abundant.

I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm.

A good time occurs precisely when we lose track of what time it is.

... the proper self-knowledge and self-love of every created thing is ipso facto a participation in the knowledge and love of God. The entire universe moves by desire for the Highest Good simply because every part of it loves what God loves - namely, its own being.

God makes the world not out of necessity but by a divine Whim, and the world he makes is a whimsically romantic place. We're all crazy about each other because we're made in the image of Someone who's been crazy about us.

For all its rooted loveliness, the world has no continuing city here; it is an outlandish place, a foreign home, a session in via to a better version of itself-and it is our glory to see it so and to thirst until Jerusalem comes home at last. We were given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.

We are so impressed by scientific clank that we feel we ought not to say that the sunflower turns because it knows where the sun is. It is almost second nature to us to prefer explanations . . . with a large vocabulary. We are much more comfortable when we are assured that the sunflower turns because it is heliotropic. The trouble with that kind of talk is that it tempts us to think that we know what the sunflower is up to. But we don't. The sunflower is a mystery, just as every single thing in the universe is.

With Jesus, however, the device of parabolic utterance is used not to explain things to people’s satisfaction but to call attention to the unsatisfactoriness of all their previous explanations and understandings.

The Christian religion is not about the soul; it is about man, body and all, and about the world of things with which he was created, and in which he is redeemed. Don’t knock materiality. God invented it.

The world exists, not for what it means but for what it is. The purpose of mushrooms is to be mushrooms, wine is in order to be wine: things are precious before they are contributory. It is a false piety that walks through creation looking only for lessons which can be applied somewhere else. To be sure, God remains the greatest good; but, for all that, the world is still good in itself. Indeed, since He does not need it, its whole reason for being must lie in its own natural goodness; He has no use for it, only delight.

A silent lover is one who doesn't know his job.

That, you know, is why the world exists at all. It remains outside the cosmic garbage can of nothingness, not because it is such a solemn necessity that nobody can get rid of it, but because it is the orange peel hung on God's chandelier, the wishbone in His kitchen closet. He likes it; therefore, it stays. The whole marvelous collection of stones, skins, feathers, and string exists because at least one lover has never quite taken His eye off it, because the Dominus vivificans has his delight with the sons of men.

Older women are like aging strudels - the crust may not be so lovely, but the filling has come at last into its own.

One real thing is closer to God than all the diagrams in the world

At the root of many a woman's failure to become a great cook lies her failure to develop a workmanlike regard for knives.

Christianity is not a religion; it is the announcement of the end of religion.

Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in and sauces which are never the same twice. Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with... Give us pasta with a hundred fillings.

Every real thing is a joy, if only you have eyes and ears to relish it, a nose and tongue to taste it.

What are you going to do with your freedom?

Man was made to lead with his chin; he is worth knowing only with his guard down, his head up and his heart rampant on his sleeve.

If you take all your meals seriously, none of them gets a chance to matter.