Orators From The United States

"I am familiar with what goes on in the Arab countries, and I'm sad to say that most of us want to annihilate Israel. We want to kill all the Israelis... Do you know what they used to say in the mosques in Egypt? "We want to go to the White House and turn it into the Islamic House..." We call upon the Arab countries to stop teaching hatred to the Arab children."

"Many of us Christians have become extremely skillful in arranging our lives so as to admit the truth of Christianity without being embarrassed by its implications. We arrange things so that we can get on well enough without divine aid, while at the same time ostensibly seeking it."

"God … must always be sought for Himself, never as a means toward something else. Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many treasures, not even the chief of all treasures. He will be all in all or He will be nothing. God will not be used."

"To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men."

"The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. He lives not for himself but to promote the interests of Another. He seeks to persuade people to give all to his Lord and asks no portion or share for himself. He delights not to be honored but to see his Saviour glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to see his Lord promoted and himself neglected. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and overserious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart."

"One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always."

"What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

"God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work."

"Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are."

"To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart."

"In the long pull we pray only as well as we live."

"The blessed and inviting truth is that God is the most winsome of all beings and in our worship of Him we should find unspeakable pleasure."

"When God would make His name known to mankind, He could find no better word than "I AM.""

"We are right when, and only when, we stand in a right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position."

"Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free."

"Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually, "Be thou exalted," and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once."

"...if my fire is not large, it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame. (forward)."

"Any belief that does not command the one who holds it is not a real belief; it is a pseudo belief only."

"Whatever a man wants badly and persistently enough will determine the man's character."

"In our constant struggle to believe we are likely to overlook the simple fact that a bit of healthy disbelief is sometimes as needful as faith to the welfare of our souls. I would go further and say that we would do well to cultivate a reverent skepticism. It will keep us out of a thousand bogs and quagmires where others who lack it sometimes find themselves. It is no sin to doubt some things, but it may be fatal to believe everything. Faith is at the root of all true worship, and without faith it is impossible to please God. Through unbelief Israel failed to inherit the promises. “By grace are ye saved through faith.” “The just shall live by faith.” Such verses as these come trooping to our memories, and we wince just a little at the suggestion that unbelief may also be a good and useful thing. … Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything. Faith engages the person and promises of God and rests upon them with perfect assurance. Whatever has behind it the character and word of the living God is accepted by faith as the last and final truth from which there must never be any appeal. Faith never asks questions when it has been established that God has spoken. 'Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar' (Rom. 3:4). Thus faith honors God by counting Him righteous and accepts His testimony against the very evidence of its own senses. That is faith, and of such we can never have too much. Credulity, on the other hand, never honors God, for it shows as great a readiness to believe anybody as to believe God Himself. The credulous person will accept anything as long as it is unusual, and the more unusual it is the more ardently he will believe. Any testimony will be swallowed with a straight face if it only has about it some element of the eerie, the preternatural, the unearthly."

"We have become so engrossed in the work of the Lord that we have forgotten the Lord of the work."

"I find that many men and women are troubled by the thought that they are too small and inconsequential in the scheme of things. But that is not our real trouble—we are actually too big and too complex, for God made us in His image and we are too big to be satisfied with what the world offers us! … Man is bored, because he is too big to be happy with that which sin is giving him. God has made him too great, his potential is too mighty."

"Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual progress. The contented soul is the stagnant soul."

"Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults, bargains or compromises."

"We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone."

"Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude, where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again. … The thoughtful soul to solitude retires," said the poet of other and quieter times; but where is the solitude to which we can retire today? Science, which has provided men with certain material comforts, has robbed them of their souls by surrounding them with a world hostile to their existence."

"The idea that this world is a playground instead of a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of Christians. They are facing Christ and the world. ...The ‘worship’ growing out of such a view of life is as far off center as the view itself—a sort of sanctified nightclub without the champagne and the dressed-up drunks.""

"Whatever else it embraces, true Christian experience must always include a genuine encounter with God. Without this, religion is but a shadow, a reflection of reality, a cheap copy of an original once enjoyed by someone else of whom we have heard. It cannot but be a major tragedy in the life of any man to live in a church from childhood to old age and know nothing more real than some synthetic god compounded of theology and logic, but having no eyes to see, no ears to hear, and no heart to love."

"Some of my friends good-humoredly – and some a little bit severely – have called me a 'mystic.' Well I'd like to say this about any w:mysticism I may suppose to have. If an arch-angel from heaven were to come, and were to start giving me, telling me, teaching me, and giving me instruction, I'd ask him for the text. I'd say, 'Where's it say that in the Bible? I want to know.' And I would insist that it was according to the scriptures, because I do not believe in any extra-scriptural teachings, nor any anti-scriptural teachings, or any sub-scriptural teachings. I think we ought to put the emphasis where God puts it, and continue to put it there, and to expound the scriptures, and stay by the scriptures. I wouldn't – no matter if I saw a light above the light of the sun, I'd keep my mouth shut about it 'til I'd checked with Daniel and Revelation and the rest of the scriptures to see if it had any basis in truth. And if it didn't, I'd think I'd just eaten something I shouldn't, and I wouldn't say anything about it. Because I don't believe in anything that is unscriptural or that is anti-scripture."

"God wants us to worship Him. He doesn't need us, for He couldn't be a self-sufficient God and need anything or anybody, but He wants us. When Adam sinned it was not he who cried, 'God, where art Thou?' It was God who cried, 'Adam, where art thou?'"

"It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply."

"In many churches Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone, and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone!"

"The biggest thing I learned was, especially the way I operate and how I am as a person, if I'm going to do a creative endeavor, I need to have full, complete control. Top to bottom. And with my book and website, I always had that. With the website, definitely, with the book, basically, with the movie...I didn't in a lot of ways. Nils and I, we had a lot of control, more control probably than almost any first time movie makers do within a normal studio system. We were in the middle between independent and not, because someone else paid for everything, and they kind of let us do what we wanted, but then once the movie was done creatively, it went in a direction that I did not want it to go, and there was nothing I could really do about it. It's hard enough to swim in that movie current by yourself, but when you've got weights tied to you and someone pulling you in a different direction, it's almost impossible. You need to pick a direction and go with it. If you're going to be a big studio movie, go be that, and if you're going to go be a rogue independent film, go be that. We had different people with different levels of authority on the movie that pulled us in different directions, and it just doesn't work. Either be in control or let someone else do it, but don't...too many chefs. I'm going to be better next time. Failure instructs, failure improves. Failure shouldn't deter you, unless you're just bad at it."

"Here’s to the people we’ve met, And to the people we’ve fucked, And to those of us Who’ve had no such luck. Here’s to beer in the glass, And vodka in the cup. Here’s to pokin’ her in the ass So she won’t get knocked up. Here’s to all of you, And here’s to me, Together as friends we’ll always be. But if we should ever disagree, Then FUCK ALL OF YOU, HERE’S TO ME!"

"A girl said this to me last night: "You aren't at all what I expected. I thought you would be more suave and debonair." That statement by itself isn't all that funny, until you put it into context: She said it to me as we were laying in bed, having just fucked three times. That was two hours after I met her."

"The Academy should give Caitlin a fucking Oscar. She delivered her scripted lines perfectly, even improvising beautifully with the "Uncle Tucker" bit. And I should get an award for choreography or something."

"Every girl asked me, "What makes you god's gift to women?" Some answers: 13 inches. Who ever thought it could be too big? I have 20 million dollars and terminal cancer. I like to listen. I'm a convicted sex offender. Have you seen this face? Look at how hot I am! I like to cut up hookers. Bend over and I'll show you."

"Yinzer: DAMN!! I wish I had your balls! Tucker:"I wish you had a breath mint, but I guess we don't always get what we wish for."

"The Cousin: Hey Tucker, you know she's French, don't you? Tucker: Oh hell no--You're French? Girl: My parents are, but I was born here. I want to move to France after graduation. Tucker: You fucking cheese-eating surrender monkey. I thought someone stunk around here. So if I start speaking German can I push you around and take all your stuff? Those hairy fucking stink-bags would be speaking Kraut right now if it wasn't for us, and they aren't the least bit appreciative. I hope they all fucking die, and your frog-sympathizing ass with them."

"Tucker: I understand how female porn stars are selected, but if you are guy, and you don't have a huge cock or shoot 8-ropers, how do you get into the porn industry? Mermaid: Networking, dude, networking. Stripper: I don't know. I just fucked whoever they told me to. It paid good. Tucker: Well isn't that pleasant? I bet your parents are beaming with pride."

"Tucker: WHERE IS THE BATHROOM? Janitor: No, no se habla Ingles. Tucker: WHAT?!? Huh, uh...DONDE ESTA FUCKING BANO? Janitor: AYA, AYA!"

"Tucker: Are you married? Girl: Yes. Tucker: How good is the marriage? Girl: Very good. Tucker: So there is no chance of us hooking up? Girl: No. Tucker: Well, do you have any hot friends who aren't fucking prudes? Hey--where are you going? I was only kidding! I respect the sanctity of the monogamous relationship! WHORE!"

"Hi. I haven't insulted you yet, have I?"

"We can't get kicked out of McDonald's! This is like the DMZ of drunk eating."

"I am Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds."

"Tucker: Do you hate the World Bank? Girl: Uhh, umm, well, I mean, yeah, I feel that... Tucker: You don't hate the World Bank. Girl: I don't? Tucker: No. You're mad at your father. You just want daddy to hug you more. Girl: What? Tucker: You were a sociology major weren't you? Girl: NO! Tucker: What was your major? Girl: [Pauses] Uhhh, English Literature. Tucker: [Pause--to give her a look of contempt] Did your parents send you a bill for college? How are those Marxist Literary Critique classes working out for you? You work at Barnes and Noble don't you? Girl: NO--I wor-- Tucker: Shouldn't you be blocking an intersection right now? How many anti-sweatshop petitions have you signed--EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE REEBOKS ON. Very-anti globalization to wear those with your animal tested Clinque make-up made in Nepal. Well, at least you're consistent in your shameless hypocrisy. Girl: What a fascist piece of shi-- Tucker: You ever wake up in the middle of the night because a couple of cats are clawing each other to death outside your window? That's what it's like listening to you speak. Girl: [A mishmash of stammered half insults] Tucker: Seriously--If I stuck my dick in your mouth would that shut you up? Girl: Wha...YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE! Tucker: HEY--Don't blame me for the wound in your crotch. [As I walk off] By the way, you owe us a rib."

"I have about half a second to make a crucial decision: I can either sprint and hope I make it there before I shit in my boxers, or I can stick my thumb up into my ass and shuffle the 60 yards to lavatory freedom."

"I was very thirsty. Laying in the bathtub, looking up at the faucet, I thought of a great idea. So I turned the nozzle on full blast, and put my mouth up to it. It was like drinking from a firehose, but I was too drunk and dehydrated to notice that I was getting completely soaked, or that water was shooting out of my nose."

"Great Holy Jesus--it looks like he fell into Kentucky Fried Movie."

"...and that we were now those guys...who started a fight at a Harry Potter book party."