“He had learned how to assemble Jewish texts, Greek philosophy, and Middle-Western evangelistic anecdotes into a sermon. And he had learned that poverty was blessed, but that bankers make the best deacons.”
“And though he had almost flunked in Greek, his thesis on 'Sixteen Ways of Paying a Church Debt' had won the ten-dollar prize in Practical Theology.”
“Well, he'd get help from the Bible. It was all inspired, every word, no matter what scoffers like Jim said. He'd take the first text he turned to and talk on that.
He opened on: 'Now THEREFORE, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which ARE beyond the river, be ye far from thence,' an injunction spirited but not at present helpful.”
“And when Elmer was about to slip out to the kitchen with her to make lemonade, Benham held him by demanding, 'What do you think of John Wesley's doctrine of perfection?'
'Oh, it's absolutely sound and proven,' admitted Elmer, wondering what the devil Mr. Wesley's doctrine of perfection might be.”
“The Reverend Elmer Gantry was reading an illustrated pink periodical devoted to prize fighters and chorus girls in his room at Elizabeth J. Schmutz Hall late of an afternoon when two large men walked in without knocking.
"Why, good evening, Brother Bains—Brother Naylor! This is a pleasant surprise. I was, uh— Did you ever see this horrible rag? About actoresses. An invention of the devil himself. I was thinking of denouncing it next Sunday. I hope you never read it—won't you sit down, gentlemen?—take this chair— I hope you never read it, Brother Floyd, because the footsteps of—”
“lead an almost irritatingly pure life, but who had no”
“It was not an esthetic room. Though Frank Shallard might have come to admire pictures, great music, civilized furniture, he had been trained to regard them as worldly, and to content himself with art which 'presented a message,' to regard 'Les Miserables' as superior because the bishop was a kind man, and 'The Scarlet Letter' as a poor book because the heroine was sinful and the author didn't mind.”
“Eddie Fislinger's church was an octagonal affair, with the pulpit in one angle, an arrangement which produced a fascinating, rather dizzy effect, reminiscent of the doctrine of predestination.”
“Street, and she was able to give Elmer the three hundred”
“Elmer Gantry never knew who set him thirty dimes, wrapped in a tract about holiness, nor why. But he found the sentiments in the tract useful in his sermon, and the thirty dimes he spent for lovely photographs of burlesque ladies.”
“Elmer Gantry was drunk. He was eloquently drunk, lovingly and pugnaciously drunk.”
“I turn away, tempted to punch the glass. I'm in the gratest danger of my life, and I'm playing with my hair and wondering if the boy I can't have-and refuse to let myself want-thinks I'm pretty.”
“As they began to tie me, I wanted to yell out, to release some of my fear that way, but I held it in. Imogen wouldn't be that far from here yet, and I didn't want her to know what was about to happen.
If it was possible to scream on the inside, though, I was, and the sound of it was deafening.”
“Cait’s lips are on mine, hard, insistent, hands fisting my hair, and she’s taking control, grinding her body to mine, finding ways to pleasure herself with my body. I am a willing slave to her desires, no intention of fighting her punishment for my resistance in accepting her love.”
“If you want a girl to like you, you have to listen like a woman and love like a man.”
“So this is your library, huh, Lucien? It's a big place What's so special about it, then?"
"Oh, it's a very unusual library, Matthew. Somewhere in here is every story that has every been dreamed. "
"They're just books."
"Oh yes. But unusual books. You'll find none of them on Earth. In this section, for example, are novels their authors never wrote, or never finished, except in dreams.”
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