Shadowlands Quotes

“We read to know we're not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God- it changes me.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn fast.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“Here I am going to say something which may come as a bit of a shock. God doesn't necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable. Worthy of love. Able to be loved by Him. We don't start off being all that lovable, if we're honest. What makes people hard to love? Isn't it what is commonly called selfishness? Selfish people are hard to love because so little love comes out of them.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in this world, and that mechanism is called suffering.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“Self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation. If you are self-sufficient, you have no need of God. If you have no need of God, you do not seek Him. If you do not seek Him, you will not find Him.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“To put it another way, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Why must it be pain? Why can't he rouse us more gently, with violins or laughter? Because the dream from which we must be wakened, is the dream that all is well.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“I am as I am. The world is as it is. Whether I am content with that has very little to do with it.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play

“HARRINGTON: And God hears your prayer, doesn't he? We hear Joy's getting better.
...
LEWIS: That's not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands: A Play