132 Quotes by Kathleen Norris

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.

The lover of books is a miner, searching for gold.

Because we are made in God's image, in fleeing from a relationship with a loving God, we are also running from being our most authentic selves.

This is a God who is not identified with the help of a dictionary but through a relationship.

I was taught that I had to 'master' subjects. But who can 'master' beauty, or peace, or joy?

Wantonness might be sheer desperation, masking a suicidal self-debasement, but it might also represent a joyful, lusty sexuality that indicated, at heart, a vast generosity of spirit.

Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.

The Christian religion asks us to put our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God Who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and Who desires to be present to us in our ordinary circumstances.

Perfection....it functions as a form of myopia, a preoccupation with self-image that can stunt emotional growth.