263 Quotes by Mark Helprin

Resurrection, he thought, comes not by plan or effort, and should the past ever come alive, it will be a great surprise, in which images and ritual memory will pale.

It was easy to argue with Quagliagliarello, if you had patience, and if you could pronounce his name.

The room, as she saw it, was a web of motion, a symphony of mischievou dancing particles quite like the smooth and placid notes of a fine concerto.

In living, one muddles through the years for the sake of those one or two moments which are indisputably great.

He could not have loved Virginia Gamely more, and he wondered if what he assumed lay at such great distance were present in this very city -or even in Virginia herself, if the future were to be fair and imaginative enough to take refuge in a single soul.

All these things were shaken about within Peter Lake like pots and pans banging against the side of a peddler’s swaybacked horse. It was hard to bear the weight of partial revelations which refused to venture past the tip of his tongue.

That’s writing, huh. What does it do?” “It’s like talking, but it makes no sound.

I don’t know for sure,” he said, “but I can’t imagine that God, who is so adept at linking parents with children, would so cruelly separate them. Perhaps it isn’t anywhere near the truth. Perhaps I’m merely self-serving. I don’t know, but I believe against all odds in exactly what you say.” “You don’t care what anyone else thinks, do you?” “No, Papa. I never did.” “That can only be because you believe.” “Yes.” “And how does God speak to you?” “In the language of everything that is beautiful.

Nothing is born as strong as it can become.