Reply Quotes

“And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand.”

“Waiting and waiting and waiting... for somebody to reply... but nobody is going to reply.”

“One should never expect anyone to reply to one's questions.”

“Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation-and for me the most important part is listening to God's replies.”

“In conversation we are sustained by the wisdom of those who have gone before us. We are also empowered to discern how we will face the challenges of both the present and the future. Reading is essential to this conversational way of life, as we often cannot literally converse with our forbears or with those who are following similar vocations in other places. We read as a way of listening to the wisdom of others. The conversation continues as we reply to this wisdom both internally and externally. Internally, we reply as we grapple to make sense of this wisdom in our own context. Externally, we reply to our reading as we discuss it with our church or work community.”

“If you don't want a man to lie,don't force him to reply.”

“The tourists had money and we needed it; they only asked in return to be lied to and deceived and told that single most important thing, that they were safe, that their sense of security—national, individual, spiritual—wasn’t a bad joke being played on them by a bored and capricious destiny. To be told that there was no connection between then and now, that they didn't need to wear a black armband or have a bad conscience about their power and their wealth and everybody else’s lack of it; to feel rotten that no-one could or would explain why the wealth of a few seemed so curiously dependent on the misery of the many. We kindly pretended that it was about buying and selling chairs, about them asking questions about price and heritage, and us replying in like manner.But it wasn’t about price and heritage, it wasn’t about that at all.The tourists had insistent, unspoken questions and we just had to answer as best we could, with forged furniture. They were really asking, 'Are we safe?' and we were really replying, 'No, but a barricade of useless goods may help block the view.' And because hubris is not just an ancient Greek word but a human sense so deep-seated we might better regard it as an unerring instinct, they were also wanting to know, 'If it is our fault, then will we suffer?' and we were really replying, 'Yes, and slowly, but a fake chair may make us both feel better about it.”

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

“The biggest barrier in communication is that tendency of listening to reply and not to understand.”