620 Quotes by Marilynne Robinson

If you thought dead was just dead, then you wouldn’t have to worry about any of this.

It is hardship that makes clear who the “fighters” are.

To condescend effectively it is clearly necessary to adhere to a narrow definition of relevant data.

So she prayed, Lord, give me patience. She knew that was not an honest prayer, and she did not linger over it... it cost her tears to think that her situation might actually be that desolate, so she prayed again for patience, for tact, for understanding – for every virtue that might keep her safe from conflicts that would be sure to leave her wounded, every virtue that might at least help her to preserve an appearance of dignity, for heaven’s sake.

I need not fear that the Lord would come to me with His sorrows.

You can love a bad book for its haplessness or pomposity or gall, if you have that starveling appetite for things human, which I devoutly hope you never will have. ‘The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.’ There are pleasures to be found where you would never look for them.

Our dream of life will end as dreams do end, abruptly and completely, when the sun rises, when the light comes. And we will think, all that fear and all that grief were about nothing. But that cannon be true. I can’t believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. That would mean forgetting that we had lived, humanly speaking. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life.

I can’t believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don’t imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try.

The world don’t want you as long as there is any life in you at all.