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
See more on GoodReads
“Water is dripping onto the floor somewhere near the cupboard, like the tick of a clock. It’s annoying because sometimes it comes when I’m expecting it and at other times it waits on purpose to irritate me.”
― Lindsey Barraclough, quote from Long Lankin
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King Jr.”
― quote from While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement
“In 1517, few western Christians worried that Muslims might have a more convincing message to offer than Christianity or that Christian youth might start converting to Islam. The Turks were at the gate, it's true, but they weren't in the living room, and they certainly weren't in the bedroom. The Turks posed a threat to the physical health of Christians, but not to the spiritual health of Christianity.
Muslims were in a different boat. Almost from the start, as I've discussed, Islam had offered its political and military successes as an argument for its doctrines and a proof of its revelations. The process began with those iconic early battles at Badr and Uhud, when the outcome of battle was shown to have theological meaning. The miracle of expansion and the linkage of victory with truth continued for hundreds of years.
Then came the Mongol holocaust, which forced Muslim theologians to reexamine their assumptions. That process spawned such reforms as Ibn Taymiyah. Vis-a-vis the Mongols, however, the weakness of Muslims was concrete and easy to understand. The Mongols had greater killing power, but they came without an ideology. When the bloodshed wound down and the human hunger for meaning bubbled up, as it always does, they had nothing to offer. In fact, they themselves converted. Islam won in the end, absorbing the Mongols as it has absorbed the Turks before them and the Persians before that.
...
The same could not be said of the new overlords. The Europeans came wrapped in certainty about their way of life and peddling their own ideas of ultimate truth. They didn't challenge Islam so much as ignore it, unless they were missionaries, in which case they simply tried to convert the Muslims. If they noticed Islam, they didn't bother to debate it (missionaries are not in the debating business) but only smiled at it as one would at the toys of a child or the quaint relics of a more primitive people. How maddening for the Muslim cognoscenti! And yet, what could Muslims do about it?”
― Tamim Ansary, quote from Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
“He saw the Constitution as the vehicle to keep ecumenical passions in check.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“Mas aprendi que estas coisas nos são mandadas para nos pôr à prova e, com cada acontecimento triste e terrível, tornamo-nos um pouco mais fortes.”
― Lesley Pearse, quote from Trust Me
The Book of Mirdad:...
A Sunday at the Pool...
Small World
The Birth and Death...
BreathlessBookQuoters 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.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
