- Mother Angelica: If you want to be holy, if you seek meaning in your life, start looking into your own life and attacking your pride in all of its many forms. God will give you extraordinary light and the ultimate reward of holiness. For your holiness relies not on what you do, but on what you allow God to do through you. Have courage. God will perfect you.
- Mother Angelica: Everything starts with one person... I don't care if you're 5 or 105, God from all eternity chose you to be where you are, at this time in history, to change the world.
- Mother Angelica: Where most men work for degrees after their names, we work for one before our names: 'St.' It's a much more difficult degree to attain. It takes a lifetime, and you don't get your diploma until you're dead.
- Mother Angelica: [Speaking to the live audience] I just always get excited when it's time to be here and talk to you all. And people say, "What are you going to say?". I thought, "I don't know. And if God doesn't have anything to say that's going to be two of us up here".
- Mother Angelica: It's hard to love someone...
- [pauses and sighs]
- Mother Angelica: ... that you wish would slip on a banana peel.
- Mother Angelica: Faith is what gets you started. Hope is what keeps you going. Love is what brings you to the end.
- Mother Angelica: Sometimes my worst day - one filled with pain and suffering - in the eyes of God, is my best day if I've born it cheerfully and I've born it with love.
- Mother Angelica: Holiness is not for wimps and the cross is not negotiable, sweetheart, it's a requirement.
- Mother Angelica: Michelangelo, and Raphael, and Bernini, and all of them knew that the human spirit rises when it sees beauty. And so when you go into God's house...
- [shakes her head]
- Mother Angelica: ... it must look like the majesty of God.
- Mother Angelica: Purity is manifold. There's purity of body, purity of mind. Today with so much pornography... ooph. I was trying to listen to the news the other night, I had to turn off - the ads were so bad. See, when you allow your mind to be filled with the husks of swine, then you'd better get back to your Father or a garment and ring you'll never have...
- [referring to the parable of the prodigal son]
- Mother Angelica: Why. Because you get satisfied eating husks.
- Mother Angelica: What makes people deny themselves with cheerfulness? Love. See, Love. Love makes everybody do what they do with ease.
- Mother Angelica: It's your obligation to speak the truth, and everyone can either take it or leave it. But truth must be in us. We live in such a poverty of truth today.
- Mother Angelica: God is not a slot machine. We don't go to God to get something; we go to give something.
- Mother Angelica: You think chocolate was the best thing you could ever give up for Christmas or for your Lent, rather? You know, that's not the point. Why don't you be sweet to you neighbour, see? Be a chocolate to your neighbour. That be nice? I just thought of that, you know. But why not? Be a chocolate to your neighbour. Do something nice to the one you dislike so much.
- Mother Angelica: "Yeah, I'm telling God to have a good one". And she said, "Doesn't He always?" "Yeah", I said, "He does. But He wants ME to tell HIM, "Have a good one'".
- Mother Angelica: [Speaking to the live audience] You're really not supposed to be comfortable when you come here, see. You're supposed to be somewhat miserable. Because if I don't make you miserable, the Lord will.
- Mother Angelica: [Telling the audience about how they used to make roasted peanuts called "St. Michael's Peanuts" at the monastery to support themselves and sell them to grocery stores and how big the sales were] This man comes in and he says to me, "I am the new concessionaire". I said, "How do you do." He says, "We think your peanuts are wonderful!" I said, "Well, thank you!" He says, "Well, there's a little advertising fee". I said, "Oh, really?" He said, "Yes." I said, "You mean kickback?" His eyes got real big, you know, like "She knows...!" "Well," he said, "we don't call it kickback, we call it advertising." I said, "I don't care what you call it. It's kickback". I said, "Look, sweetheart, I'm not gonna pay". He said, "Then you lose the concession". I said, "I don't care. Look, if I'm going to Hell, it's not gonna be over a peanut." Can you imagine being in Hell and somebody saying, "What are you here for?" And they say, "A peanut". "What?". I mean that would be stupid, wouldn't it?
- Caller: Hello, Mother Angelica.
- Mother Angelica: Hello, caller. How can I help you today?
- Caller: Um, I would like to know if a person can still go to Heaven without going to church.
- Mother Angelica: [long pause] Are you serious?
- Mother Angelica: [Speaking of politics and elections] "You gotta be democrat or republican." "Well, maybe I'm neither one". "You gotta be one". "Why?" "So your vote counts". Well, it hasn't counted in the last twenty years. If I vote for them they never make it. I don't know why. You got that trouble? So I vote but... last time, let's see... presidential election I write in "Jesus". And the whole community wrote in "Jesus". He's the only one I know who could straighten it out.
- Mother Angelica: Now, what does that got to do with what I'm talking about?
- [pause]
- Mother Angelica: Nothing!
- Mother Angelica: [Quoting from the Gospel] "But it's those who were invited proved unworthy. 'Go to the crossroads in the town and invite everybody you can find'." Isn't that wonderful? That's the rest of us... you bunch of sinners out there.
- Mother Angelica: Last Thursday was one of my bad days. You ever had a bad day? Anybody here never have a bad day?... So everybody's had a bad day. Well, last Thursday was one of my bad days. I got very angry with some contractors over electric lights, why they could't put up this light when I wanted that light and why they couldn't put it up there. Anyway, I blew my 75-year old stack. It was just as hot as it would've been when it was 17. So I did have a hard day. Well, that night when I came home there was a little note at my table at refectory. And I was in a hurry and I just read, it was folded, see. It said, "Lucifer called". And I looked at that thing, "What?" They said, "What's the matter?" I said, "Who said 'Lucifer called?'" I forgot to turn it over, you see. It said, "Lucifer called God a lier". I knew I didn't do the right thing but I didn't think it was that bad, you know, that Lucifer had to call.
- Mother Angelica: Everybody loves a gentle person. Not because, you know, you can just walk over him. A gentle person is able to make a correction with love. Ahhhh, now that's something. Many people cannot correct with love. Why. A gentle person will make the sinner feel like saying, "I don't like your sin but I love you". That's different. A gentle person knows the difference between the sin and the sinner, so they can love the sinner and not love the sin at all.
- Mother Angelica: Simply believing in the existence of God is not exactly what I would call a commitment. After all, even the Devil believes that God exists. Believing has to change the way we live.
- Mother Angelica: Only in eternity shall we see the beauty of the soul, and only then shall we realize what great things were accomplished by interior suffering.
- Mother Angelica: Those who tell the Truth love you. Those who tell you what you want to hear love themselves.
- Mother Angelica: God keeps the entire Universe in order, and still finds time to take a personal interest in you and me.
- Mother Angelica: How are you going to get to Heaven if you don't even desire it or know it exists, huh?
- Mother Angelica: God always forgives when you are totally repentant and you desire to change. He forgives... and He never gets tired of forgiving. Never. You may get tired asking. I hope not. He never, never tires of forgiving. Never.
- Mother Angelica: You can't go to Heaven hating somebody. Forgive now. Be compassionate now. Be patient now. Be grateful now. Love Jesus and Mary now. Accept God's will now.
- Mother Angelica: I never saw so many blonds with black roots. Sometimes we get attached to wanting to look like I did when I was sixteen. Sweetheart, you can forget that one.
- Mother Angelica: [Speaking about what it will be like in Heaven] So in Heaven we will enjoy each other's holiness. There're a few people we may go to and say... You ever had a bad day? Anybody here never have a bad day?... So everybody's had a bad day. Well, last Thursday was one of my bad days. I got very angry with some contractors over electric lights, why they could't put up this light when I wanted that light and why they couldn't put it up there. Anyway, I blew my 75-year old stack. It was just as hot as it would've been when it was 17. So I did have a hard day. Well, that night when I came home there was a little note at my table at refectory. And I was in a hurry and I just read, it was folded, see. It said, "Lucifer called". And I looked at that thing, "What?" They said, "What's the matter?" I said, "Who said 'Lucifer called?'" I forgot to turn it over, you see. It said, "Lucifer called God a lier". I knew I didn't do the right thing but I didn't think it was that bad, you know, that Lucifer had to call. "I'd never though you'd make it". And they'll probably say to you, "Well, kiddo, I never thought you would either". But you'll be happy together forever. Just imagine your dearest and greatest enemy you will love with all your heart.
- Mother Angelica: [At the end of a show] Listening to me may be part of your Purgatory. But I can assure you that talking to you is a part of my Heaven. God bless you.
- Mother Angelica: I don't have a problem with the Trinity... The Trinity probably has a problem with me.