214 Quotes by Charles Frazier

The father let his rifle down and stood its butt against the porch boards. The boy, though, kept alert. There was a good deal of killer about him, and it was why he still lived. The last four years had made a whole generation of young boys -- who ought to have been going to school and learning a trade and thrilling deep in their bones just to dance with a girl and peck her on the cheek -- into slit-eyed killers with no more tell of emotion than an old riverboat faro gambler.

We mark some days as fair, some as foul, because we do not see that the character of every day as identical

V has finally learned that sitting calm within herself and waiting is often the best choice. And even when it's not, those around you become uncomfortable because they think you are wise.

...I had always believed prayer ought to be conducted on our feet rather than on our knees, since God seems in all other departments of life to require us to stand upright and account for ourselves.

They [in the northern country] had, as well, invented a holiday called Thanksgiving, which Ruby had only recently got news of, but from what she gathered its features to be, she found it to contain the mark of a tainted culture. To be thankful on just the one day.

No looking back. Life goes one way only. And whatever opinions you hold about the past have nothing to do with anything but your own damn weakness. Nothing changes what already happened. It will always have happened. You either let it break you down or you don't. A simple enough lesson...

Miss Howell, I worry that the pains your father has taken to educate you will result in little but finding himself with a wit on his hands.

[No] matter what a waste one has made of one's life, it is ever possible to find some path to redemption, however partial.

There in the highlands, clear weather held for much of the time. The air lacked its usual haze, and the view stretched on and on across rows of blue mountains, each paler than the last until the final ranks were indistinguishable from the sky. It was as if all the world might be composed of nothing but valley and ridge.