Quotes from A Year of Marvellous Ways

Sarah Winman ·  310 pages

Rating: (4.7K votes)


“Coming back from the dead is not quite the same as coming back to life.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“There was no point in tears outliving eyes, so she let them fall.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“Love just enough. What's enough? Enough to hold. When it hurts, you're loving too much. Just enough to hold. Anything more than a handful and you're in trouble.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“We were the centre of that liquid universe, for we were the night sun and we said to ships, do not come too close, we have rocks at our feet. And the crash of waves sent white spray flying, and I am scared and exhilarated and a little bit in love too.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“It was as if a blade had shucked his heart like an oyster and stolen the beauty within. He said his heart never started beating again, it just started working and I never understood the difference, not until I was much older anyway, when I learnt that coming back from the dead is not quite the same as coming back to life.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways



“Love. It's the only thing to have faith in... Or the moon. Soemthing that turns up every day when you cant. The sun. The moon. Anything. You have to have faith in something.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“No atheists at sea, Drake. When the waves are the size of mountains even the godless kneel.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“The choir sang and the old man sang and Drake couldn't sing, and suddenly he began to cry because of the music, because of the sound of the boys' voices, because of what they might turn into.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“The principles of catching rumours were, in fact, similar to the principals of catching dreams, but because rumour was weightier, the catcher had to be positioned closer to the ground. Rumour flew low, dreams flew high, and somewhere in between were prayers.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“So, thought Peace, there was a wall around his heart and she wondered whether she should hoist up her skirt and scale that wall, but she knew she didn’t have the right shoes on for that sort of climb because hers were too sensible for a man like Drake.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways



“She trekked back across the meadow and down through the trees in possession of the oldest secret known to man. She sat on the mooring stone and surrendered immediately to the down of night. She hadn't slept long before she suddenly jolted awake. Thought she had heard the sweet call of a lark ascending. Unaware that it was actually the sound of her soul awakening.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“Marvellous blossomed, having quite forgotten what an exciting and necessary jolt being needed gave.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“You have to risk failure to become excellent.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“And they held on tight to that beautiful silent moment before words transported them to the realm of the ordinary, to the realm of the inarticulate and mundane.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


“Those left behind prayed constantly for peace but prayers came back with Return to Sender stamped all over them. Only the roll call of the dead grew.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways



“But I’m not patient, said Marvellous. I’m diligent.”
― Sarah Winman, quote from A Year of Marvellous Ways


About the author

Sarah Winman
Born place: The United Kingdom
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Popular quotes

“Tenía una de esas caras de pasa que todavía te las puedes imaginar cuando eran uva porque en algún lugar por debajo de las arrugas hubo una vez algo bonito.”
― Annabel Pitcher, quote from Ketchup Clouds


“There is power in words.
There are words that bid us laugh and make us weep. Words to begin with and words to end by. Words that seize the hearts in our chests and squeeze them tight, that set the skin on our bones to tingling. Words so beautiful they shape us, forever change us, live inside us for as long as we have breath to speak them. There are forgotten words. Killing words. Great and frightening and terrible words. There are True words.
And then there are pictures.”
― Jay Kristoff, quote from Kinslayer


“The fates and character of the rhyming tribe often employ my thoughts when I am disposed to be melancholy. There is not, among all the martyrologies that ever were penned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, quote from Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament


“McCoy, drained and hollow-eyed, couldn't take his eyes off the life vest belonging to the boy who'd slipped away from the group during the night. The empty vest spooked McCoy. All its straps were still tightly tied-it looked like some trick that Houdini might've played. Then McCoy peered into the water and got another shock: the boy was floating below him, spread-eagled, about fifteen feet below the surface. He lay motionless until a current caught him; then it was as if he were flying in the depths. Jesus, McCoy thought, Mother of God. He started saying the rosary over and over. McCoy had never been overly religious; his mom was the spiritual one in the family. But now he began the process of what he'd later call his purification; he'd started asking God to forgive him of his sins. He was resolved to live but he was getting ready to die.”
― Doug Stanton, quote from In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors


“We are all looking for a place in life, somewhere we fit. It’s not a place that changes who we are or what we do – perhaps it shapes us, makes us better, makes us more - but mostly it shelters us with a sense of peace, a sense that whatever we do, whoever we are, we’re not alone in it.
I was lucky enough to find that place, when I was sixteen years old.”
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BookQuoters 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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