Quotes About Ritual

Someday," Lillian said grumpily, huddling against his powerful chest, "you'll have to explain why men find it such an unholy joy to go outside before it's light, and wander through muddy fields to kill small animals." "Because we like to test ourselves against nature. And more importantly, it gives us an excuse to drink before noon." -Lillian & Marcus

A wedding ritual in my part of Wales. A man and woman exchange vows with a stone held between their joined hands. After the ceremony, they go together to cast the stone into a lake, and the earth itself becomes part of their oath. From then on, they are bound to each other for as long as the world exists.

You let him touch you," Todd observed idly. My eyes widened. "I do not." "Yes you do. Just little touches here and there. He puts his hand on your arm or back, he stands close to you, getting you used to him . . . it's a mating ritual. Like March of the Penguins." "It has nothing to do with mating rituals. It's a Texas thing. People are touchy-feely here.

Every morning I read the obituaries. If it ain't there I make myself a cup of tea and carry on like I have the past century or so.

Think of controversy as the necessary mating ritual before various good ideas can give birth to progress.

Seldom have I found in the ritual music of the Catholic church a quality so convincing that there is no need to mourn the past. Without going into a complicated maze of aesthetics, we can define quality as a certain something which is not inferior to what the external world offers, such as to render every Christian proud of his own music.

Black wizards don't just grow up like toadstools, you know. Someone has to teach them complicated things like summoning demons, ritual magic, and clichéd villain dialogue.

It's a shadelight, Grimm said quietly. Some of my men put one up whenever I lose a member of the crew. To light his shade's way back to his bunk, so he can rest. A bit heathen of them, I suppose, Benedict said. It's a tradition, Grimm said. Were traditions rational, they'd be procedures.

The Shroud was old, and regarded as special, and people believed in it. That could be enough to give it a kind of power, all by itself.

in a counterclockwise direction, also known as widdershins

Human sacrifice," the skull chirped brightly. "The slaughter of an innocent.

Five white candles surrounded my summoning circle, the points of an invisible pentacle. White for protection. And because they're the cheapest color at Wal-Mart. Hey, being a wizard doesn't make money grow on trees.

what we are talking about here is faith in a dramatic convention.

Hannah removed three eggs from the refrigerator behind the counter and dropped them, shells and all, into the bowl with the coffee grounds. Then she broke them open with a heavy spoon and added a dash of salt. Once she'd mixed up the eggs and shells with the coffee grounds, Hannah scraped the contents of the bowl into the basket and flipped on the switch to start the coffee.

Food is the thing that unites us all, that brings us back together. Food is the thing we can provide when there is nothing else we can do. That's why we serve it at funerals. To remind us that Life always goes on.

I work to Glenn Gould in the morning and go to sleep listening to Parsifal.

Let's celebrate the end of Lent by doing everything we pretended to give up for Lent.

the priest just as he was about to begin a service or to search houses as the dancing

Living was simple: it was no more than a few habitual actions strung on to a routine.

How but in custom and in ceremony are innocence and beauty born?

When additional emphasis is placed upon these officiants being celibate and male (to avoid the pollution of menstruation), then the importance of ritual purity for many Christians, though they may have become unaware of it through familiarity, becomes obvious. Perhaps no more need be said, but the Christian view of the Blessed Virgin Mary might be a fruitful area for further exploration.

Baseball is a ceremony, a ritual, as surely as sacrificing a goat beneath a full moon is a ritual.

Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you've the chance.

A choral dance: an attempt to impose upon a chance gathering of a few dozen guests a communal feeling.