Quotable & Notable

“I just don’t want to die in this shirt.”

-- Tourist Tina Steven, wearing a Bourbon Street T-shirt with a lewd message, who decided to ride out Hurricane Katrina in a French Quarter hotel. The Associated Press reported Steven, a nursing assistant, and her paramedic husband Bryan survived the storm and had volunteered with local authorities.

“No matter what religion you are, whether you’re a Catholic, whether you’re voodoo … we all pray. We all pray.”

-- Gail Henke, a New Orleans tour booker who made it through Katrina. “I am not a religious fanatic, but God has saved us,” she said.

“Faith is not merely the attachment to a complex of dogmas, complete in itself, that is supposed to satisfy the thirst for God, present in the human heart.”

-- Pope Benedict XVI at his Aug. 28 Angelus talk. “Looking for Christ must be a constant yearning of believers,” he said.

“We’re just average American boys doing average American activities. But after Sept. 11, we also have to be ambassadors of our faith.”

-- Rehman Muhammad, 13, member of all-Muslim Boy Scout Troop 797 in Houston

“More people than ever are believing in life after death.”

-- Psychic James Van Praagh, discussing the fall TV season, which is heavy with programs about ghosts and paranormal phenomena

National Catholic Reporter, September 9, 2005