Quotes from Home

“There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“She knew that was not an honest prayer, and she did not linger over it. The right prayer would have been, Lord . . . I am miserable and bitter at heart, and old fears are rising up in me so that everything I do makes everything worse.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all . . . except what you can't be rid of.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“Weary or bitter of bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“God does not need our worship. We worship to enlarge our sense of holy, so that we can feel and know the presense of the Lord, who is with us always. He said, Love is what it amounts to, a loftier love, and pleasure in a loving presence.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“That odd capacity for destitution, as if by nature we ought to have so much more than nature gives us. As if we are shockingly unclothed when we lack the complacencies of ordinary life. In destitution, even of feeling or purpose, a human being is more hauntingly human and vulnerable to kindnesses because there is the sense that things should be otherwise, and then the thought of what is wanting and what alleviation would be, and how the soul could be put at ease, restored. At home. But the soul finds its own home if it ever has a home at all.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“All bread is the bread of heaven, her father used to say. It expresses the will of God to sustain us in this flesh, in this life. Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“How to announce the return of comfort and well-being except by cooking something fragrant. That is what her mother always did. After every calamity of any significance she would fill the atmosphere of the house with the smell of cinnamon rolls or brownies, or with chicken and dumplings, and it would mean, This house has a soul that loves us all, no matter what. It would mean peace if they had fought and amnesty if they had been in trouble. It had meant, You can come down to dinner now, and no one will say a thing to bother you, unless you have forgotten to wash your hands. And her father would offer the grace, inevitable with minor variations, thanking the Lord for all the wonderful faces he saw around his table.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“Prayer is a discipline in truthfulness, in honesty.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“Why should a family with eight rambunctious children bother owning anything that could be damaged? They sat on the arms of their mother's overstuffed chair while she read to them, and they hung over the back of it, and they pinched and plucked at its plushy hide.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“He will talk to me a little while, too shy to tell me why he has come, and then he will thank me and leave, walking backward a few steps, thinking, Yes, the barn is still there, yes, the lilacs, even the pot of petunias. This was my father's house. And I will think, He is young. He cannot know that my whole like has come down to this moment.
That he has answered his father's prayers.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“She thought, If I or my father or any Boughton has ever stirred the Lord's compassion, then Jack will be all right. Because perdition for him would be perdition for every one of us.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“That's what the family is for,' he said. 'Calvin says it is the Providence of God that we look after those nearest to us. So it is the will of God that we help our brothers, and it is equally the will of God that we accept their help and receive the blessing of it. As if it came from the Lord Himself. Which it does. So I want you boys to promise me that you will help each other.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“It seems as though the conclusions are never as interesting as the questions. I mean, they’re not what you remember.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“You never bother me, Glory. It's remarkable how much you don't bother me. Almost unprecedented.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“She wept easily. This did not mean that she felt things more deeply than others did. It certainly did not mean that she was fragile or sentimental or ready to bring that sodden leverage to bear on the slights that came with being the baby of the family.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“The young might have been restless around any primal fire where an elder was saying, Know this. Certainly they would have been restless. Their bodies were consumed with the business of lengthening limbs, sprouting hair, fitting themselves for procreation.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“You must forgive in order to understand.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“The joke seemed to be that once they were very young and now they were very old, and that they had been the same day after day and were somehow at the end of it all so utterly changed. In a calm, affectionate way they studied each other. Ames”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“She was afraid to be angry and that made her angry.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“Home. What kinder place could there be on earth, and why did it seem to them all like exile? Oh,”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“...her father was soothed by these attentions, as if pain were an appetite for comforting of just this kind.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“It is like a voice heard from another room, singing for the pleasure of the song, and then you know it, too, and through you it moves by accident and necessity down generations. Then, why singing? Why pleasure in it? And why the blessing of the moment when another voice is heard, dreaming to itself?”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“How oddly holiness situated itself among the things of the world, how endlessly creation wrenched and strained under the burden of its own significance.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

“It seemed to her there was a peacefulness about him that came with resignation, with the extinction of that last hope, like a perfect humility undistracted by the possible, the unrealized, the yet to be determined.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Home

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Popular quotes

“She nods, turning the silver bangle around on her wrist.
“She came from some village north of here, a few hours away. She traveled all the way to the city just to…”
She trails off, feeling a lump grow in her throat.
“…to take you to that orphanage?” Sanjay finishes for her.
Asha nods.
“And she gave me this.”
She slides the bangle back on her wrist.
“They gave you everything they had to give,” Sanjay says. He reaches across the table for her hand. “So how do you feel, now that you know?”
Asha gazes out the window.
“I used to write these letters, when I was a little girl,” she says. “Letters to my mother, telling her what I was learning in school, who my friends were, the books I liked. I must have been about seven when I wrote the first one. I asked my dad to mail it, and I remember he got a really sad look in his eyes and he said,
‘I’m sorry, Asha, I don’t know where she is.’”
She turns back to face Sanjay.
“Then, as I got older, the letters changed. Instead of telling her about my life, I started asking all these questions. Was her hair curly? Did she like crossword puzzles? Why didn’t she keep me?”
Asha shakes her head.
“So many questions."
“And now, I know,” she continues. “I know where I came from, and I know I was loved. I know I’m a hell of a lot better off now than I would have been otherwise.”
She shrugs.
“And that’s enough for me. Some answers, I’ll just have to figure out on my own.”
She takes a deep breath.
“You know, I have her eyes.” Asha smiles, hers glistening now. She rests the back of her head on the booth.
“I wish there was some way to let them know I’m okay, without…intruding on their life.”
― Shilpi Somaya Gowda, quote from Secret Daughter

“He understands evil better than any other person I’ve ever known. We disagree in how to eliminate it, but we do not disagree that it exists.”
― Nalini Singh, quote from Heart of Obsidian

“Those kinds of food that increase life's period, energy, strength, health, well-being, and joy, which are savoury, oleaginous, nutritive, and agreeable, are liked by God.”
― C. Rajagopalachari, quote from Mahabharata

“Men who have embraced one idea can live only by and for that idea. Beyond it, they have nothing but their memories.”
― quote from The Forgotten Soldier

“Jealousy is common among lesser men,”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Academ's Fury

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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.

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.