Charles Martin · 352 pages
Rating: (6.2K votes)
“Never judge someone by their relatives.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“He picked up one of Lorna's roses and set it in my lap. "Here." I picked it up and smelled it. He poked me in the shoulder. "See what I mean? Thorns don't stop you from sniffing. Or putting them in a vase on the kitchen table. You work around them.... Cause the rose is worth it... Think what you'd miss.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“You take the bad with the good, Rise up through it. Live in the mist of it. It's the bad that lets you know ho good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't any good. There is, and lots of it, too. ”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“I had this dream that my life was a rolling canvas. Everyday it rolled off the sheet, bleached white, into the beach of my life. Come sunup, I'd begin to paint it with my thoughts and actions. My breathing, my living, and my dying. Some days the pictures pleased me, maybe pleased others, pleased God himself, but some days, some months, even some years, they didn't, and I didn't ever want to look at them again. But the thing is this . . . every day, no matter what I'd painted the day before, I got a new canvas, washed white. 'Cause each night the tide rolled in, scrubbed it clean, and receded, taking it's stains with it. And my dreams . . . I just stood on the beach and watched all that stuff wash out to sea.- Nothing more than ripples in the water. No canvas is ever stained clean through. Not one.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Well...letting the cat out of the bag is a lot easier than putting it in.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“You can put your boots in the oven, but that doesn't make them biscuits. - You can say whatever you want about something, but that doesn't change what it is.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“...forgive your enemies...it messes with their heads.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Scientists say that these things evolved this way over millions of years." He shook his head. "That's a bunch of bunk. I don't think an animal can just all-of-a-sudden decide it wants to make light grow out it's butt. What kind of nonsense is that? Animals don't make light." He pointed to the stars. "God does that. I don't know why or how, but I'm pretty sure it's not chance. It's not some haphazard thing he does in his spare time."
He looked at me, and his expression changed from one of wonder to seriousness, to absolute convicton. "Chase, I don't believe in chance." He held up the jar. "This is not chance, neither are the stars."....."And neither are you. So, if your mind is telling you that God slipped up and might have made one giant mistake when it comes to you, you remember the firefly's butt.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“It's so dry the trees are bribing the dogs.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“She smiled, tilted her head, and . . . have you ever seen video of melting glaciers where huge chunks, the size of skyscrapers, break off and crash into the sea? If hearts could do that, then when her hair slid from behind her ear and down her eyes, and the right side of her lip turned up, I heard my heart crack down the middle.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Time to paint your but white and run with antelope-in English- Stop arguing and do as your told.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Gonna be a real frog-strangling turd-floater.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Sometimes good judgement comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgement.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Identity does not grow out of action until it has taken root in belonging.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“If my life were still a movie, this is the part that would end up on the cutting room floor. We were all just fill-ins for a long-running soap opera. The actors changed, but the story seldom did. Certainly not the action.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“If God can make a firefly’s butt light up like a star, then anything is possible. Anything.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“The only monster you need to worry about in this life is the one that stares at you from the mirror each morning. You tame him, make friends with him, and the rest of life is nothing you can’t handle.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“A change in paperwork [birth certificate] can't erase words stamped on the human heart.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“O amor faz destas coisas. Nomeia o inominável e confere voz ao silêncio”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“And they ate supper before they said grace...Oh, um...she moved into his house, stayed awhile, and then they got married.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“I’m no expert, but I know one thing about anger—it’s like alcohol. At some point, if you pour enough in there, it’s coming back up. You may think you’ve built up a tolerance, but the truth is this—no man, not even Unc, can bury it so deep that it doesn’t erupt at some point like Vesuvius and splatter your soul across the earth.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“The only monster you need to worry about in this life is the one that stares at you from the mirror each morning. You tame him, make friends with him, and the rest of life is nothing you can't handle.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“I quit screaming at God a long time ago, ’cause I reckon he knows a thing or two about hurt.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“If manhood is passed down, if it is a mantle cut from the cloth of one and draped across another, it is not done so using titles or accolades. Not hardly. It occurs there—in that spout now resting neck-high—pouring down the spine and into the belly in a language that has never been transcribed, but that every boy on the planet understands and has always understood.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“That's life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It's the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't no good. There is, and lots of it, too.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“You can say whatever you want about something, but that doesn’t change what it is.” He”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“That’s life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It’s the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don’t let the bad leave you thinking like there ain’t no good. There is, and lots of it, too.” “You”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
Charles Martin
Born place: in The United States
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“Prove to me that you are not a figment of my imagination.
Am I a computer simulation?
Does the door swing both ways?
How can something come from nothing?
How do you know a line is straight?
If animals wanted to be eaten, would it be okay?
If time stopped then stared again, would we know about it?
What happens when you get scared half to death twice?
What is creationism?
What is ethical?”
― Jessica Park, quote from Flat-Out Love
“And what do you look like on the next plane?” “Imagine me now, except twice as handsome.” “Yeah, right.”
― Chanda Hahn, quote from UnEnchanted
“The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from The Black Echo
“What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question.”
― Michael Crichton, quote from The Lost World
“She came awake, stomach rumbling, and opened her eyes to see a plate being held right under her nose.
When she reached for it, Shane snatched it back. 'Nuh-uh. Mine.'
'Share!' she demanded.
'Man, you are one grabby girlfriend.'
She grinned. It always made her feel so fiercly warm inside to hear him say that- the girlfriend part, not the grabby part.
'If you love me, you'll give me a taco.'
'Seriously? That's all you got? What about you'll do sexy, illegal things to me for a taco?'
'Not for a taco,' she said. 'I'm not cheap.'
'They're brisket tacos.'
'Now you're talking.”
― Rachel Caine, quote from Ghost Town
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