Quotes from Dalva

Jim Harrison ·  336 pages

Rating: (2.6K votes)


“I was on the verge of jumping into one of those holes in life out of which we emerge a bit tattered and bloody, though we remain sure nonetheless that we had to make the jump.”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“the natural world seemed to absorb the poison in me.”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“How could all this happen when there was an ocean?”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“There is the question of whether life is long enough to get over anything. I sat down on the ground to avoid tipping over from the enormity of it all.”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“Earlier, when I made my coffee (after releasing my grateful geese), I sat at the big Northridge desk and got out the Edward Curtis portfolio for breakfast reading. When I untied the first folio there was a note—“Dalva & Ruth. Wash your hands. I love you. Grandpa.” A simple old note, brittle with age, but I was momentarily overcome with loneliness for her; at the same time, though, I knew in a deeper sense that I was totally out of the running. In the long and short of it, love is a more difficult subject than sex. Or history. I”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva



“was a little embarrassed after I dressed and sat down to review my schoolwork. She had a large tumbler of imported sherry and poured me a small glass. The Jerez sherry was an indulgence she had learned during the two years she had lived in Barcelona and Ibiza. She pushed the schoolwork aside and started to talk, more a slangish monologue than a lecture: “I certainly don’t believe that story about you screwing a pheasant-hunter but that’s your business, and right now it should matter to no one except you. You’re going to have a hard time, because you are lovely and your body is as fine as I’ve seen.” I objected to this as ugly and irrelevant but she went on: “You have to study extremely hard and find some subject or profession you’re obsessed with because in our culture it has been very hard on the attractive women I know. They are leered at, teased, abused, set on a pedestal, and no one takes them seriously, so you have to use all your energies to develop”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“While it is a truism that man has not learned much more than the sexual act, and that fire burns when you stick your hand into it, it behooves the scholar to immerse himself in the analyses of the problem, rather than the problem itself. One”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


About the author

Jim Harrison
Born place: in Grayling, Michigan, The United States
Born date December 11, 1937
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, quote from Jane Eyre


“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.”
― William Golding, quote from Lord of the Flies


“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from The Alchemist


“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from Crime and Punishment


“Early to bed and early to rise," Mazer intoned, "makes a man stupid and blind in the eyes.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Ender's Game


Interesting books

The Trouble with Love
(5K)
The Trouble with Lov...
by Lauren Layne
Big Rock
(22.4K)
Big Rock
by Lauren Blakely
The Remedy
(4.3K)
The Remedy
by Suzanne Young
The Dogs I Have Kissed
(1.8K)
The Dogs I Have Kiss...
by Trista Mateer
The Complete Essays of Montaigne
(10.6K)
The Complete Essays...
by Michel de Montaigne
Ego Is the Enemy
(16.1K)
Ego Is the Enemy
by Ryan Holiday

About BookQuoters

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.

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.