Quotes About Creation

Mesopotamian literature is concerned about the jurisdiction of the various gods in the cosmos with humankind at the bottom of the heap, the Genesis account is interested in the jurisdiction of humankind over the rest of creation as a result of the image of God in which people were created.

Whatever humanity does, it should be directed toward bringing order out of non-order. Our use of the environment should not impose disorder. This is not just a house that we inhabit; it is our divinely gifted home, and we are accountable for our use of it and work in it.

The Bible considers it much more important to say that God has made everything work rather than being content to say that God made the physical stuff.

It is difficult to think of the "natural world" as sacred (because we just designated it "natural").

In the ancient Near East people were created as slaves to the gods. The world was created by the gods for the gods, and people met the needs of the gods.

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons." The Hebrew word for "sign" is owth, which also translates as "signals." Therefore, based on the Bible, God uses the sun, moon, and stars as signals to mankind.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. (PSALM 19:1–4)

We are the only creators, the only gods. Guilty gods, negated gods, damaged, schizophrenic gods, but above all self- changing gods.

We are the sole creators of the system which entraps us.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties. (Interview in Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews , Eighth Series, ed. George Plimpton, 1988)

When, if only for a moment, the novelist steps out of the creator's role, what roles are there for the novelist to step into? There are only creators of stories and characters in stories; there are no other roles. Ruth had never felt such anticipation before. She felt she had absolutely no will to take control of what happened next; in fact, she was exhilarated not to be in charge. She was happy not to be the novelist. She was not the writer of this story, yet the story thrilled her.

God creates us out of love, but we don't want God, or we don't believe in Him, or we pay very poor attention to Him. Nevertheless, God continues to love us—at least, He continues to try to get our attention. Pastor Merrill made religion seem reasonable. And the trick of having faith, he said, was that it was necessary to believe in God without any great or even remotely reassuring evidence that we don't inhabit a godless universe.

Vano è dire che gli esseri umani dovrebbero contentarsi della tranquillità: occorre loro l'azione; e la creeranno, se non riescono a trovarla.

Imagining the stories you want to write, and waiting to write them, is part of the writing process—like thinking about the characters you want to create, but not creating them.

Therefore, there must be a first mover existing above all—and this we call God.

It's not like writing a novel. It's easy to know the future when I'm making up the story.

We have woven a web, you and I, attached to this world but a separate world of our own invention.

The process by which wants are now synthesized is a potential source of economic instability. Production and therewith employment and social security are dependent on an inherently unstable process of consumer debt creation. This may one day falter.

The process by which money is created is so simply that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent.

The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version. All financial innovation involves in one form or another, the creation of debt secured in greater or lesser adequacy by real assets.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done Nothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy. Nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time. It's easy. Nothing you can know that isn't known. Nothing you can see that isn't shown. Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. It's easy.

I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.

We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.

An artist, when sketching, looks at a landscape and then a sketch pad, repeating the process until an image appears, depicting, but not duplicating, what's there. Landscape and sketch pad guide the artist's hand, but no two artists will sketch the scene in just the same way.