64 Quotes by Eowyn Ivey

He stood there a moment, listened to the creek, and let the mountain air blow against his face. Even with all this heartache, it was beautiful here.

And if it is true...that we are each inhabited by some bit of divine light, then upon death, how long before those particles dissipate entirely, becoming unrecognizable except as a part of some great whole?

I am left to wonder, will anyone else see it?That day in the forest when I looked upon the marble bear, alive with the setting sun, what did I witness? Was it only sunlight on stone, or Father's spirit, or a reflection of my own? It seems to me now that such a moment requires a kind of trinity: you and I and the thing itself.

Then he returned to Mabel and put his mouth to her ear. I'd never let anything happen to you. You know that, don't you?

A boy trying out a man's language.

Everywhere, even in the blackest abyss, he believed one might witness the divine. The shadows and contrast―absence itself―as important as the light and marble, for one cannot exist without the other.

Why was it always the woman's fate to pace and fret and wait?

I would believe again if I could. In goodness. In magnificence. In simple benevolence. Yet even in these far and icy valleys, mankind is no different, just more poorly armed. Strip away psychrometer and sextant, carbines and glass plates, skin shifts and quills and painted faces, and we are the same. Quivering maws. Gluttonous. Covetous. Fearful. We say we worship. A word. A man-god. A fiery mountain. But we worship only ourselves. And we are jealous gods.

You did not have to understand miracles to believe in them, and in fact Mabel had begun to suspect the opposite. To believe, perhaps you had to cease looking for explanations and instead hold the little thing in your hands as long as you were able before it slipped like water between your fingers.