“Perhaps that's what life is about--the search for such a connection. The search for magic. The search for the inexplicable. Not in order to explain it, or contain it. Simply in order to feel it. Because in that recognition of the sublime, we see for a moment the entire universe in the palm of our hand. And in that moment, we touch the face of God.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“One’s nature comes from within, not from without. The abomination occurs in subverting one’s instinct in favor of a rigid code written by others. Trying to force yourself into a role that confounds your spirit will always break you.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“If you feel you don’t have enough, you hold on to things,” he said. “But if you feel you have enough, you let go of things.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“With a book—presuming it’s a good book—you can depend upon an outcome that adheres to the necessities of drama. The question will be answered. It has to be. The answer may not be happy; we can’t guarantee a comedy. Sometimes tragedy strikes. But there will be a conclusion. Of that we can be sure. That’s the whole point of a book. But in real life, there is no guarantee that any question will ever be answered. Real life is messy because we don’t know where it’s going to go.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“No, you don’t remember, and sometimes it’s best that way. Sometimes it’s best to start fresh. Every day, fresh. Living always in the present, unburdened by the pain of the past. Most of us drag around our misdeeds like giant dead birds tied to our necks; we condemn ourselves to telling every stranger we meet the story of our anguish and inadequacies, hoping that one day we will be forgiven, hoping that we will find a person who will look at us and pretend to ignore the ridiculous dead birds hanging from our sunburned and weather-beaten necks. And if we find that person, and if we don’t hate him for not hating us, if we don’t hold him in contempt for not treating us contemptuously, as we expect to be treated—nay, as we demand to be treated—well, that person will be something of a soul mate, I imagine.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“Perhaps that’s what life is about—the search for such a connection. The search for magic. The search for the inexplicable. Not in order to explain it, or contain it. Simply in order to feel it. Because in that recognition of the sublime, we see for a moment the entire universe in the palm of our hand. And in that moment, we touch the face of God.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“I have made mistakes and I have hurt people, I do not deny that fact. But I have corrected those mistakes vigorously once I understood the error of my ways.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“With a book—presuming it’s a good book—you can depend upon an outcome that adheres to the necessities of drama. The question will be answered. It has to be. The answer may not be happy; we can’t guarantee a comedy. Sometimes tragedy strikes. But there will be a conclusion. Of that we can be sure. That’s the whole point of a book.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“I hear hundreds of years of life. I hear wind and rain and fire and beetles. I hear the seasons changing and birds and squirrels. I hear the life of the trees this wood came from.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“Stories continue in all directions to include even the retelling of the stories themselves, as legend is informed by interpretation, and interpretation is informed by time.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“You know,” he said, “at some point you’re going to realize that being a smart-ass isn’t as much about being smart as it is about being an ass.” “That’s good,” I said. “Did you read that in a fortune cookie?”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“I hoped...something...words, maybe; stories -- something I could touch, and when I touched it, it was different than when other people touched it. I wanted very badly to have an affinity for something that would become transcendent when I held it in my hands... Perhaps that's what life is all about -- the search for such a connection. The search for magic. The search for the inexplicable. Not in order to explain it, or contain it. Simply in order to feel it. Because in that recognition of the sublime, we see for a moment the entire universe in the palm of our hand. And in that moment, we touch the face of God.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“(C)hoice without alternative is only a sleight of hand; it is a magician's force-play, during which you believe you have free well, but your fate has already been decided: the magician knows which card you will pick!”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“Oh, my faith has flagged at times. It's easy to fall back into the same routines and paint over the sublime with coat after coat of indifference... I promise you something: when you have touched the face of God, you can never unlearn what you have learned. You can never unsee what you have seen.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“the result is what people live with, not the cause.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“With a book—presuming it’s a good book—you can depend upon an outcome that adheres to the necessities of drama.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“You know, he said, at some point you're going to realize that being a smart-ass isn't about being smart as it is about being an ass.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“You know,” he said, “at some point you’re going to realize that being a smart-ass isn’t as much about being smart as it is about being an ass.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“What did we do before Google? Before Wi-Fi? Before cable modems? Before cell phone towers on every building? Before that? We did what we had to do because we were resourceful. We had initiative. And we understood that the process is fundamental to the result: a poor process produces a poor product. And now? Now we let someone else worry about the messy details. We delegate that responsibility. And so we delegate our privacy. And so we delegate our liberty. And so we forsake the control of our own destinies.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“More wine helps; it takes the edge off the despair.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“You know what your potential was when you were young: you could have done anything! But instead of doing anything, you did nothing.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“I realized, then, that being an adult was just about bullshitting everyone around you. Just do things until someone stops you from doing those things, and then say, “Oh, that isn’t allowed?”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“Truth, honesty, integrity, he said. "And loyalty. Above truth, honesty, and integrity, I would demand loyalty. Loyalty above all. You have to swear an oath."
"I can never put loyalty above truth honesty and integrity. . . don't demand loyalty over truth. Don't ever do that.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“The rain has been incessant. It feeds my soul. I feel that it washes over my body, and a part of me drips into the soil with the rain, and a part of me becomes the soil and is drank into the roots of these trees and I have become one with them.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“Because the earth calls. The soil, the rocks, the clay. It calls to us to remind us, to make sure we remember. The earth will ultimately win. It always does. We will, all of us, end our lives here. Even the birds.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“if money affects who you love, then it isn’t really love.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“I wanted very badly to have an affinity for something that would become transcendent when I held it in my hands. I don’t know that I’ve ever found that thing; sometimes I suspect I have, but then I doubt myself. Perhaps I’m looking for it still. Perhaps that’s what life is about—the search for such a connection. The search for magic. The search for the inexplicable. Not in order to explain it, or contain it. Simply in order to feel it. Because in that recognition of the sublime, we see for a moment the entire universe in the palm of our hand.”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“We are all connected. The living to the non-living, as the non-living to the living. All things in all directions in all times. It is only in the physical dimension that we have limitations. (The membrane between us is thinner than you think.)”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
“One’s nature comes from within, not from without. The abomination occurs in subverting one’s instinct in favor of a rigid code written by others. Trying to force yourself into a role that confounds your spirit will always break you.” I”
― Garth Stein, quote from A Sudden Light
Garth Stein
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“Justify my soul, O God, but also from Your fountains fill my will with fire. Shine in my mind, although perhaps this means “be darkness to my experience,” but occupy my heart with Your tremendous Life. Let my eyes see nothing in the world but Your glory, and let my hands touch nothing that is not for Your service. Let my tongue taste no bread that does not strengthen me to praise Your great mercy. I will hear Your voice and I will hear all harmonies You have created, singing Your hymns. Sheep’s wool and cotton from the field shall warm me enough that I may live in Your service; I will give the rest to Your poor. Let me use all things for one sole reason: to find my joy in giving You glory. Therefore keep me, above all things, from sin. Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul. Keep me from the murder of lust that blinds and poisons my heart. Keep me from the sins that eat a man’s flesh with irresistible fire until he is devoured. Keep me from loving money in which is hatred, from avarice and ambition that suffocate my life. Keep me from the dead works of vanity and the thankless labor in which artists destroy themselves for pride and money and reputation, and saints are smothered under the avalanche of their own importunate zeal. Stanch in me the rank wound of covetousness and the hungers that exhaust my nature with their bleeding. Stamp out the serpent envy that stings love with poison and kills all joy. Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice. But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love, that I may love not for the sake of merit, not for the sake of perfection, not for the sake of virtue, not for the sake of sanctity, but for You alone. For there is only one thing that can satisfy love and reward it, and that is You alone.”
― Thomas Merton, quote from New Seeds of Contemplation
“But it is not necessarily the case that liberal democracy is the political system best suited to resolving social conflicts per se. A democracy's ability to peacefully resolve conflicts is greatest when those conflicts arise between socalled "interest groups" that share a larger, pre-existing consensus on the basic values or rules of the game, and when the conflicts are primarily economic in nature. But there are other kinds of non-economic conflicts that are far more intractable, having to do with issues like inherited social status and nationality, that democracy is not particularly good at resolving.”
― Francis Fukuyama, quote from The End of History and the Last Man
“The sidewalk was completely empty. It was Sunday, early April. An icy wind teetered trash cans and turned my cheeks to marble. In Vietnam we had no weather like that. Here in Cleveland people call it spring.”
― Paul Fleischman, quote from Seedfolks
“Truly, flowers open, only to be blown down by the wind.”
― Shi Nai'an, quote from Outlaws of the Marsh
“This is my gift to you, this story that is also a song, these words that are a part of Fokir. Such flaws as there are in my rendition of it I do not regret, for perhaps they will prevent me from fading from sight, as a good translator should. For once, I shall be glad if my imperfections render me visible.”
― Amitav Ghosh, quote from The Hungry Tide
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HardwiredBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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