Francis Spufford quotes

Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue. (Francis Spufford)
The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable to anybody who has ever made their way across the common ground of human experience as an adult. View quote
Francis Spufford
Belief demands that you dispense with illusion after illusion, while contemporary common sense requires continual, fluffy pretending - pretending that might as well be systematic, it's so thoroughly incentivised by our culture. View quote
Francis Spufford
For a believer, Christian faith is true to the human heart, not in the sense that any old thing we fancy believing in will become conveniently true - but because the complicated truth about our hearts, as we struggle to perceive it, tells us what we are and where we are, and consequently what we need. View quote
Francis Spufford
There have been low moments before, but Christianity is an incredibly adaptable organism, using different parts of its repertoire to mutate into new ecological niches, yet preserving intact its story of grace, of love improbably triumphant. View quote
Francis Spufford
I am a fairly orthodox Christian. Every Sunday, I say and do my best to mean the whole of the Creed, which is a series of propositions. But it is still a mistake to suppose that it is assent to the propositions that makes you a believer. It is the feelings that are primary. View quote
Francis Spufford
Self-awareness is not the same thing as self-approval, any more than imagination is the same thing as day-dreaming. View quote
Francis Spufford
I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence. View quote
Francis Spufford
If you based your knowledge of the human species exclusively on adverts, you'd think that the normal condition of humanity was to be a good-looking single person between 20 and 35, with excellent muscle-definition and/or an excellent figure, and a large disposable income. View quote
Francis Spufford