“In a universe, on a continent, in a country, in a state, in a county, on a river, in a small yellow boat,' I said. 'That's what Mary used to say to explain the odds of us meeting. And you have to be born in roughly the same period. Those are the odds. And probably you need to speak the same language.'-- Cobb”
― Joseph Monninger, quote from Eternal on the Water
“Don’t spit into heaven... Don’t tell the gods your plans; they’ll only laugh.”
― Joseph Monninger, quote from Eternal on the Water
“We are alive, the wolves said. And the world is beautiful.”
― Joseph Monninger, quote from Eternal on the Water
“It’s the Thanksgiving rule. That’s another life tip.” “Explain,” I said. “Oh, Thanksgiving is this massive meal that usually takes someone about three days to prepare, and then everyone sits down and eats it in about fifteen minutes. The trick is to learn to take your time with Thanksgiving. You have to get everyone to promise that they won’t get up for anything for at least an hour. Maybe two.”
― Joseph Monninger, quote from Eternal on the Water
“All morning I thought how strange our meeting was. I mean, we have to be in a universe, on a continent, in a country, in a state, in a county, on a river, in a small yellow boat.[...]Long odds. And we had to leave our homes at the right time, drive at such and such a pace, stop for lunch, or not, get gas, or not. A thousand coincidences that arranged themselves so that we could meet. And then of course, we have to be attracted to each other. When I was little, my girlfriends and I called it Yeti love. You never expect to see it, but you've heard it's out there and it might just be a legend. But you keep looking for it anyway.”
― Joseph Monninger, quote from Eternal on the Water
“I liked her smile. And I knew that I had fallen in love. I knew that I wanted to run rivers with her, and camp, and go out to dinner and dance, and meet people with her by my side, and establish routines, and hear every knock-knock joke in her repertoire. I knew that. The knowledge came as simply as clean linen.”
― Joseph Monninger, quote from Eternal on the Water
Joseph Monninger
Born place: in Baltimore, The United States
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“If it weren’t for physics and law enforcement, I’d be unstoppable.”
― Darynda Jones, quote from Fifth Grave Past the Light
“She's been used to hiding her feelings for so long, no wonder her manner can be a little awkward.”
― Sophie Kinsella, quote from Shopaholic Ties the Knot
“Give me the benefit of your assistance during those ablutions that neccessarily, though unfortunatly, invariably follow the excercise of the culinary art.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, quote from The Little White Horse
“He held no aspirations of ever being anything to them”
― Keigo Higashino, quote from The Devotion of Suspect X
“What do you learn at school, then?"
"We learn about the Prophet and his three hundred authenticated miracles,and about Abraham and Isaac and Jonah and Omar and Ali and Hind and Fatima and the saints, and sometimes the big battles of Saladin against the barbarians. And we recite the Holy Koran because we have to learn al-Fatihah by heart."
"What's that?"
"It's the beginning."
"What's it like?"
Karatavuk closed his eyes and recited:'Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim...' When he's finished he opened his eyes, and mopped his forehead. "It's difficult" he observed.
"I didn't understand any of it" complained Mehmetcik. " It sounds nice though. was it language?"
"Of course it was language, stupid. It's Arabic."
"What's that then?"
"It's what Arabs speak. And it's what God speaks, and that's why we have to learn to recite it. It's something about being merciful and the Day of Judgement and showing us the right path, and if anything is going wrong, or you're worried, or someone's sick, you just have to say al-Fatihah and everything will probably be all right."
"I didn't know that God spoke language." observed Mehmetcik. Father Kristoforos speaks to him in Greek, but we don't understand that either."
"What do you learn, then."
"We learn more than you," answered Mehmetcik self-importantly. "We learn about Jesus Son of Mary and his miracles and St Nicholas and St Dmitri and St Menas and the saints and Abraham and Isaac and Jonah and Emperor Constantine and Alexander the Great and the Marble Emperor, and the great battles against barbarians, and the War of Independence, and we learn reading and writing and adding up and taking away and multiplication and division."
"Don't you learn al-Fatihah,then?"
"When things go wrong we say 'Kyrie elesion'. and we've got a proper prayer as well."
"What's that like?"
Mehmetcik screwed up his eyes in unconcious imitation of his friend, and recited: 'Pater imon, o en tois ouranis, agiasthito to onoma sou, eltheto i vasileia sou..'
When Mehmetcik has finished, Karatavuk asked, "What's that about, then? is that some kind of language?"
"It's Greek. It's what we speak to God.I don't know exactly what it means, it's something about our father who is in heaven and forgive us our daily bread, and led us not into temptation, but it doesn't matter if we don't understand it, because God does"
"Maybe," pondered Karatavuk, " Greek and Arabic are actually the same language, and that's how God understands us, like sometimes I'm Abdul and sometimes I'm Karatavuk, and sometimes you're Nico and sometimes you're Mehmetcik, but it's two names and there's only one me and there's only one you, so it might be all one language that's called Greek sometimes and Arabic sometimes.”
― Louis de Bernières, quote from Birds Without Wings
North and South
Halfway to the Grave
Hamlet
A Great and Terrible...
Wizard's First Rule
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