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Geoffrey Wood Quotes

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Geoffrey Wood, born in 1945, is an accomplished author whose works span a variety of genres, including history, literature, and philosophy.

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Famous Geoffrey Wood Quotes

“In general, Americans would walk a mile uphill in the rain to avoid pain, unless the walk could be shorter and level and the day sunny, which they’d prefer.”

Pain Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Americans Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“They think virtues are man-made, only exist because they exist, but if no human had ever existed, The Virtues would persist for they hold their being from the very Presence of the Adversary Himself.”

Religion Christianity Virtue Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“I have witnessed the pleasant result of producing a human who faithfully claims to be a Christian, but who on some fundamental level does not think Christianity actually works. And just one Christian of this type turns off dozens from trying out Christianity for themselves.”

Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Even if their guilt actually does produce a good action, it will be the saddest good action you’ll ever see, and it will be of no use to them because their goal is not to obey, but to feel less guilty, thus nothing about their souls will be reshaped.”

Religion Christianity Guilt Guilty Souls Christian Fiction Grimrack Obey

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“If we can keep the Christians thinking of themselves as sinners not sons and daughters, we can make them view their relationship to The Adversary as a negative-sum-game: They fall in a hole, He pulls them out, they fall back in, etc... That way they never get anywhere; they’re always either standing next to a hole or down in it.”

Religion Christianity Guilt Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Guilt, if cultivated in a Christian client, can render their Christianity worthless to themselves and others.”

Religion Christianity Guilt Worthless Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“I’ve seen a disobedient client simply turn his attention toward The Adversary and ask “Are You still there?” and suddenly all was made well between them.”

Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“It seems The Adversary needs neither their guilt nor their request, but simply their return. In other words, since repentance is the process whereby guilt is turned into gratitude, He doesn’t mind if they skip a step and go directly to gratitude.”

Religion Christianity Gratitude Guilt Repentance Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“That dusty hill we can scarcely look upon and then only with pain, The Adversary, also with pain, does and must ever witness The Crucifixion.”

Pain Religion Christianity Witness Christian Fiction Crucifixion Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Make them imagine repentance more like an appearance in court before a cranky old judge, less like a child knocking on his father’s study door to have a chat.”

Religion Christianity Repentance Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“They view repentance as the thing they have to do in order to earn forgiveness, therefore the more difficult they make it, the more credit they tally up.”

Religion Christianity Repentance Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Remember, this type doesn’t really believe He’ll forgive them, by repenting they are trying to earn what they do not think, in any case, He will pay.”

God Religion Christianity Repentance Forgive Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Their guilt plus their repentance should have equalled forgiveness. But they don’t feel forgiven, so they failed, which makes them feel guilty, which was why they repented in the first place, so they’re stuck right where they started: Guilty.”

God Religion Christianity Guilt Guilty Repentance Forgiven Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“And recently, we installed another word in its place which, to their minds, has a wholly positive connotation. We say ‘Gluttony’. They say ‘Consumerism’.”

Religion Christianity Consumerism Christian Fiction Gluttony Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Consumerism, the new black. I want my burger my way. Shaken not stirred. Sauce on the side and rare but not rare rare. Venti, two-pump, sugar-free vanilla, non-fat, two Splenda, extra-hot, extra-whip, extra-mocha Mocha and can you put the Splenda in before you pour the milk? (See, this is where it gets positively delicious!) Under the auspices of that wonderful word Consumerism, not only is this not seen as overly demanding, it’s positively encouraged by everyone.”

Religion Christianity Consumerism Christian Fiction Starbucks Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“The more we train a man to labor, deliberate, dictate and demand over the inconsequential, the less capable his mind becomes of holding that of consequence.”

Mind Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“We have deficited upon their attention in the most disorderly fashion.”

Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“I shouldn’t need to remind you that it was words that created the universe and The Word that now holds it together. While your man was simply reading one little book, something not unlike Genesis was stirring in his skull, and you didn’t think to stop it?”

Book Religion Reading Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Joy is that paradox where a man so trusts, is so enraptured, as to be caught up and lost in the other, while at the same time, being utterly known by the other, thus utterly himself.”

Joy Religion Christianity Paradox Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“In Joy, to lose one’s life is to gain it, and Joy never loses an opportunity to be lost in the other.”

Joy Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“That sense of entitlement is precisely where we want them because the right to happiness is directly opposed to one of The Adversary’s greatest curatives —gratitude.”

Happiness Religion Christianity Gratitude Entitlement Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“But here I’d like to add to what the Tempter’s Manual suggests. Depression, at its finest, is not a Future that they cannot hopefully construct, nor a shamed Past that hounds them, but an agonizing Present that they cannot escape. We want to disable their Present so that they cannot use it to look Heavenward.”

Religion Christianity Depression Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“And I’m glad to see that all three clients are male. Not that the females can’t be corrupted, I’ve just always found the males more amenable to temptation. The males have always had all the power, so that does much to explain it. As they say: Easy pickings.”

Religion Christianity Female Temptation Christian Fiction Male Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“First of all, don’t ever let them try to define that word “happiness” for themselves. They can’t and that’s precisely what we never want them to realize. Keep it a vague bright mist hovering about their heads. Locate it securely at the end of implausible rainbows. Hide it snugly in some corner of their thoughts they rarely visit.”

Happiness Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack Rainbows

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Never let them try out this gratitude, for they would immediately discover that it supplies the first and most important component to happiness: Contentment.”

Happiness Religion Christianity Gratitude Contentment Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of gratitude, now that would’ve worked. They would have been readily led to contentment, which would’ve then better lead them on to happiness.”

Life Happiness Religion Liberty Christianity Gratitude Pursuit Contentment Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happy hour, the long weekend, the all-inclusive island resort, the sunny beach vacation. Happiness is somewhere else, someplace with boat drinks, some secret, distant state of bliss which if they were given would bore them in minutes.”

Life Happiness Religion Liberty Christianity Pursuit Christian Fiction Grimrack Happy Hour Boat Drinks

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Teach them the shame that tells the lie, “I am unforgivable,” when the truth is, “I feel unforgivable, but it was out of my control.” Never let them switch those round right or The Adversary will liberate them in a heartbeat, like a bird flying from a cage.”

Truth Religion Christianity Bird Shame Heartbeat Christian Fiction Cage Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Somehow they fail to see that for someone aggravated by depression, self-help will be useless, indeed, it is precisely the self that needs to be forgotten.”

Self Religion Christianity Self Help Depression Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“I say “illusion” of choice because, in many cases, the nature of their choices hardly reaches the level of will, but of merely perfunctory activity. For the most part, their desires are not too strong, they are too weak, apathetic and easily placated. They often can be tempted into doing Nothing.”

Religion Strong Christianity Illusion Weak Choice Will Tempted Nothing Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“But as I say, if you look to the state of their souls you’ll find the situation nowhere near as grave as polls suggest. There’s more to being a servant of The Adversary than signing up.”

Religion Christianity Servant Souls Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“They really do occupy a scrumptious little dark corner of my heart!”

Heart Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“No earthly act escapes its eternal echoes, echoes more substantial than the acts themselves.”

Religion Christianity Eternal Echoes Christian Fiction Grimrack Earthly

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“A tiny adjustment, but a tasty one. Poof! And somewhere in the back of their minds the godlike thought glimmers.”

God Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Minds Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“They think that if they were allowed to do anything they desired, they would be satisfied and the more desires the better. But all desires divorced from The Desire eventually collapse in on themselves.”

Desire Religion Christianity Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“If we blind them to The Adversary —decrease their desire for The Desire— while at the same time encourage them to do anything else they desire with increasing “freedom of choice,” then eventually we snuff out desire while leaving demand in tact.”

Desire Religion Christianity Demand Christian Fiction Freedom Of Choice Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Finally, slowly, drippingly, degrade the term Choice down to its most meager means: The red car not the black one. The 9:25 showing, not the 7:15. Ritz not Wheat Thins.”

Religion Christianity Choice Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Also, always encourage 'being good' over 'doing good.' Acts of goodness are the difficulty for us and should, of course, be avoided. 'Being good' is far less problematic, largely because it lacks definition and can be solely a state of mind completely unattached to reality.”

Religion Christianity Good State Of Mind Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“This is why we apply the LCD Principle or Lowest Common Democracy. In short, this is social interaction based not on the best possible good, but on the least possible offense. Without saying so, the parties involved have entered into the following arrangement: What is the least we can all agree on and still get along? Of course, you can see this means no one is pleased.”

Religion Christianity Democracy Christian Fiction American Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“We’ve spent centuries moving them away from that word virtue and especially The Virtues and that’s precisely how we did it —by making it lower case.”

Religion Christianity Virtue Christian Fiction Grimrack

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“There will be a solidity to their faith which is very dangerous to our designs and difficult to dissolve. There is a luminosity to it. Just one Christian of that type can dispel years worth of diabolical delusion.”

Religion Faith Christianity Delusion Christian Fiction Luminosity

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Your suffering only matters if it connects you to the suffering of others, if it heals them too.”

Ifs Matter Suffering Heal Suffering Of Others

Book:Leaper: The Misadventures of a Not-Necessarily-Super Hero

Source: Leaper: The Misadventures of a Not-Necessarily-Super Hero

“Without God, reality is madness. Reason will tell you so. You either madly trust in God, or you trust in a world gone mad without him.”

World Reason Reality Gone Madness Mad Trust In God Without God

Book:Leaper: The Misadventures of a Not-Necessarily-Super Hero

Source: Leaper: The Misadventures of a Not-Necessarily-Super Hero

“When their minds mingle with His magnanimity, something of eternity rubs off on their imaginations.”

Mind Imagination Eternity Magnanimity

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“They want explanation, not faith; God gives them faith as the explanation.”

Want Giving Explanation

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“Still, despite all our noise, this universe hinges on a melody, that’s the dismal truth of it. Oh, we can propagandize all we wish, it doesn’t change the fabric of things. This universe was not made for the fallen, only the redeemed.”

Made Stills Universe Wish Noise Despite Fallen Melody Fabric Redeemed Hinges

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“In general, it's not too hard to corrupt an American, mostly a matter of supply to their demand. Supply should be variegated to encourage the Illusion of Choice. Other than that they're looking for numbness, so be ready to sedate. Drugs, booze, television, shopping, etc.”

Should Matter Hard Choices Television Ready Drug Demand Illusion Etc Shopping Booze Numbness Illusion Of Choice

Author:Geoffrey Wood

“In every human act of charity, something larger, greater, divine has come down to visit the act.”

Humans Greater Divine Charity Acts Of Charity

Author:Geoffrey Wood

About the Author

Born: 1945
Known for: Author
Quotes: 98

Books & Sources

The God CookieRelated source material

Leaper: The Misadventures of a Not-Necessarily-Super HeroRelated source material

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