“What we don’t like, what *I* don’t like, is the hypocrisy of these people. I want to hear them confess. They they, or some of their countrymen and their country’s government, violated the precepts of Christian, civilized, lawful life was bad enough; they they won’t see it, or say it, is what really rowels.”
“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
“It should have been you two. I’m not pretending I didn’t always see that. Of course I did, as far back as I can remember. But I kept you apart. I’m not asking you to forgive me for that. That’s not what I’m after just now. What I want is for you to put it right. Put right what I messed up for you.”
″ ‘Well, what would you have me do instead, Gabriel? The more I give in to him, the more I want him.’ My confession appeared to surprise him, but not as much as it surprised me.”
“And maybe, just maybe, as long as she never actually confessed to him how she felt, that would make it okay to give in to what she felt for Grayson for one night, beneath the moon, with the smell of wild grass and the ocean all around them...”
″‘Now that I think about it, I do have one regret.’
‘Much better,’ he said. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ He clicked his pen back open. ‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Pencils... I regret not having more of them.‘”
″...if I die tonight I’m in a state of sin for stealing and I could go straight to hell stuffed with fish and chips but it’s Saturday and if the priests are still in the confession boxes I can clear my soul after my feed.”
“I did confess, but I confessed a lie. I confessed, that I might obtain absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than all my other sins.”