Cathedral Quotes

In Montreal, when I grew up, I’d go to the Notre-Dame Basilica, a gorgeous cathedral in town. I’d listen to huge symphony orchestras, Pavarotti singing operas; that was absolutely marvelous. I like that aspect of the cathedral, the spectacle.

I read the Scriptures at the American Cathedral on Christmas and Easter; that’s it. It’s a task I love.

I once worked it out – after $12 million, all millionaires are the same. That’s because we’re all humans, confined to human scale. How many homes can you live in? How many meals can you eat? You can have a living room the size of a cathedral, but you won’t live in it. It’s too big.

I think there’s definitely a potential there for a congregation to survive without the Crystal Cathedral. The congregation is the people. It’s not the building.

He who has seen one cathedral ten times has seen something; he who has seen ten cathedrals once has seen but little; and he who has spent half an hour in each of a hundred cathedrals has seen nothing at all.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes, and in the foxhole of my divorce, I found solace in walking to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and lighting candles.

Maimed but still magnificent… Europe’s mightiest medieval cathedral.

I’m never happy with what I’ve written. You imagine, before you start, there’s a cathedral, and the moment it starts on the page, it’s a garden shed. And then you just try to make it the best shed you can.

Nobody has ever called Shea Stadium a cathedral. In style, it was more like the old warehouse or outdated movie theater that Korean worshippers have transformed into a church in the borough of Queens. Not a cathedral – but a place where people go to be fulfilled, nonetheless.

My ambition is to give Oakland’s cathedral a universal character independent of the Catholic Church.

I love Spanish cities, particularly Barcelona, Madrid and Palma, which has the most amazing cathedral that I once went to for a wedding.

When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then – and not until then – will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher become a real and blessed truth.

But I did get to see the Notre-Dame cathedral, which was really special to me. I’m completely heartbroken over the fire, but I’m really glad that they’re gonna be able to salvage it.

Sigmund Freud was the apostle of disbelief. He was the one who made psychoanalysis a part of our culture, and in so doing he kicked out a flying buttress that had been essential for holding up our cathedral of faith.

People said making clothes inside out was not proper. I disagreed, because clothes that are inside out are as beautiful as a cathedral.

As a boy soprano in the high school choir, I later sang a solo during the carol service at Canterbury Cathedral, but I was too young to secure the Freddy Eynsford-Hill role in our production of ‘My Fair Lady’ – and far too timid to have thought to audition for it.

How wonderful to know that Christianity is more than a padded pew or a dim cathedral, but that it is a real, living, daily experience which goes on from grace to grace.

It is an exceptional event to build a cathedral – it must withstand several lifetimes.

The Christmas market at the Barcelona Cathedral sells all kinds of things for your Nativity scene. It will also give you a good idea of Catalan culture.

Every sport needs its temple, its cathedral.

When I started to build this cathedral, the word on the street was that I was crazy.

Madison Square Garden to any New York kid is the center of the universe. Even going there as a fan is like stepping up to the plate at Yankee Stadium. You know you’re in the grand cathedral.

We are material creatures who spend much of our lives on material pursuits (even building a cathedral or writing a novel requires stone and mortar or paper and ink).

The Crystal Cathedral is not an attempt to be an architectural ego-statement. It’s probably the ultimate spiritual and psychological statement that could be made in architectural terms.

Writing in modern Hebrew is a bit like playing chamber music inside a huge, empty cathedral. If you are not very careful with the echoes, you may evoke some monstrosities.

When I visit any cathedral, it reminds me of being with my grandparents. They weren’t particularly religious, but my grandfather was obsessed with architecture.

At first, people thought I was just some kind of kook. But now they see the cathedral, see what I have done, and they are supportive.

I’m not a religious person. But, when I look at a beautiful cathedral, what brings awe, what induces awe is the idea that architecture, you know, a beautiful cathedral, a beautiful building.

You’re either singing on TV or in front of a full cathedral and there’s a bit of pressure there. I know it sounds funny but if you get used to doing it, then performing in front of people playing cricket is the same sort of thing.

Joe Dugan, who was my roommate on the Yankees, was an honorary pallbearer, too. He was standing next to me as they were carrying the Babe down the steps of St. Pat’s Cathedral here in New York. There must have been 5,000 people standing around on the sides of the street, and it was tremendous.

The story of the decadence of the cathedral as a moral power, a spiritual energizer in civilization, is the sad but inevitable story of dogmatism. It is the story of the struggle of free thought with bigotry, religion making common cause with the wrong side.

Five days a week I drive from our home to the Episcopal Cathedral Center of Los Angeles where I have an office, my computer, and a wonderful sense of community – especially nurtured by the presence of several younger gay men and women who are good friends.

We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men.

A Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the universe evokes far more awe for creation than light streaming through a stained glass window in a cathedral.

I studied at Cathedral School, where a lot of kids go abroad after Class XII. But I was clear that I wanted to be an actress, and thus, even though I got 92% in my board exams, I applied only to Jai Hind College for Mass Communication and got in and completed my graduation.