Quotes About Mystery

The spiritual life involves risk. There's no way around it. The paradox of biblical religion is that God cannot be understood, much less managed. Coming to terms with ultimate mystery is always dangerous. But to our amazement, encountering the Holy can also mean being strangely and unaccountably loved.

Something similar (to bird migrations) draws human beings on pilgrimages as well… Pilgrimage is a spiritual as well as biological impulse, cutting across species. It's even a cosmic mystery. The Earth itself follows a 584-million-mile path around the sun each year. We're all defined by movement.

The connecting web is a mystery embedded in the ordinary. My falling in love with a tree has been a profound experience of the sacred…I increasingly encounter God's presence in the rough touch of bark and the sound of rustling leaves. In the ordinary.

Lori and Smith were heading over to his office when she grabbed his arm, grinned widely and said, "You're Valentina's mystery guy that she can't shake, aren't you?" Knowing Lori was completely beside herself with glee at realizing he was Valentina's un-boyfriend, Smith muttered, "This is making your day, isn't it, Naughty?" "Are you kidding? This has just made my year!

Some things are just perfect, even when they don't make any sense

She'd painted her nails with rainbow stripes and it occurred to him that Vicki was just as beautiful and mysterious as a rainbow. One he'd been chasing for years without ever coming close to reaching the pot of gold at the end.

Every human life has a secret essence, it's a secret even to the possessor, because you don't know what to make of it.

We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.

Ah, think not meanly of yourselves, and sink into no common mass of being, as if your individuality were ever destructible or not all significant. You are bounded and confined by the impassable limits of that mystery we call "ourselves."

You put a spell on the dog," I said as we left the house. "Just a small one," said Nightingale. "So magic is real," I said. "Which makes you a...what?" "A wizard." "Like Harry Potter?" Nightingale sighed. "No," he said. "Not like Harry Potter." "In what way?" "I'm not a fictional character," said Nightingale.

Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much. Scientific potatoes rule. Had I stumbled on the lair of dangerous plant geneticists?

This is why magic is worse even than quantum physics. Because, while both spit in the eye of common sense, I've never yet had a Higgs bosun turn up and try to have a conversation with me.

Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.

Actually I'd always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the commissioner called him on the bat phone and summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.

Don't ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let's just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that.

As I stepped onto the gloomy landing a word formed in my mind: two syllables, starts with a V and rhymes with dire. I froze in place. Nightingale said that everything was true, after a fashion, and that had to include vampires, didn't it? I doubted they were anything like they were in books and on TV, and one thing was for certain — they absolutely weren't going to sparkle in the sunlight.

This is your brain on magic.

I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, "Who knows why the fuck anything happens?

Carnivorous unicorns, I thought.

Something round and dirty and white was resting near my foot. It was a skull. I picked it up. 'Is that you, Nicholas?' I asked. 'Put that down, Peter,' said Nightingale. 'You don't know where it's been.

He was a Parisian,' he said. 'You can never be sure what Parisians believe in – beyond Paris of course.

I did feel a 'something', like a catch in the silence at the moment of creation.

What's it a charm for?' she asked. The man thought about this for a moment. 'It's your basic all-enveloping protection charm,' he said, his hands describing a cupped circle in the air. 'For protection against...' 'Envelopes?' said Abigail.

Dr Walid walked me past the security at reception and introduced me to today's dead body.