Quotes from In the Bleak Midwinter

Julia Spencer-Fleming ·  370 pages

Rating: (10.1K votes)


“I believe that God hears our prayers, and cherishes them. I believe He answers by sending us His spirit, giving us strenght, and peace, and insight. I don't think He responds by turning away bullets and curing cancer. Though sometimes that does happen."

Harlene frowned. "In other words, sometimes, the answer is no?"

"No. Sometimes the answer is "This is life, in all its variety. Make your way through it with grace, and never forget that I love you.”
― Julia Spencer-Fleming, quote from In the Bleak Midwinter


“Russ decided the best defense was a good offense. "I'm Russell Van Alstyne, Millers Kill chrief of police." He held out his hand. She shook firm, like a guy.

"Clare Fergusson," she said. "I'm the new priest at Saint Alban's. That's the Episcopal Church. At the corner of Elm and Church." there was a faint testiness in her voice. Russ relaxed a fraction. A woman priest. If that didn't beat all.

"I know which it is. There are only four churches in town." He saw the fog creeping along the edges of his glasses again and snatched them off, fishing for a tissue in his pocket. "Can you tell me what happened, um..." What was he supposed to call her? "Mother?"

"I go by Reverend, Chief. Ms. is fine, too."

"Oh. Sorry. I never met a woman priest before."

"We're just like the men priests, except we're willing to pull over and ask directions.”
― Julia Spencer-Fleming, quote from In the Bleak Midwinter


“She was pretty, yeah, but pretty like hundreds of other girls. You," he dabbed the bread in the air as if sketching her, "you're...memorable. Who you are just shines through your face.”
― Julia Spencer-Fleming, quote from In the Bleak Midwinter


“If you know a person’s history, you can use it to help predict what that person might do. A person’s history can be the key to understanding his motivation for committing a crime.”
― Julia Spencer-Fleming, quote from In the Bleak Midwinter


“Because the things you have, and the neighborhood you live in, doesn’t have anything to do with what kind of human being you are.”
― Julia Spencer-Fleming, quote from In the Bleak Midwinter



“He tells them he and his wife are keeping the baby, because it’s the last link to their little girl or some cowpuckie like that.”
― Julia Spencer-Fleming, quote from In the Bleak Midwinter


About the author

Julia Spencer-Fleming
Born place: Plattsburgh, NY, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“It was their vampire teacher’s custom of late to administer decidedly oddball lessons. Which is to say, more oddball than an ordinary lesson with a vampire in a floating dirigible espionage school.”
― Gail Carriger, quote from Waistcoats & Weaponry


“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, quote from The Velveteen Rabbit


“Fate. Destiny. God. It’s all a crock. People want their lives to make sense, want to sit back like cosmic detectives and examine what’s happened to them so far, identifying the key turning points that shaped them and retroactively imbuing these moments with a mystical aura, like the celestial forces of the universe are a team of writers on the serialized television show of your life, charged with concocting outrageously convoluted plotlines designed to achieve resolution by the end of the season. No one wants to believe that it’s all completely random, that the direction of our lives is nothing more than a complex series of accidents, little nuclear mushroom clouds, and we’re just living in the fallout.”
― Jonathan Tropper, quote from How To Talk To A Widower


“If you need to fall, fall into me.”
― Brittainy C. Cherry, quote from The Gravity of Us


“There were, in Feo's experience, five kinds of cold. There was wind cold, which Feo barely felt. It was fussy and loud and turned your cheeks as red as if you'd been slapped, but couldn't kill you even if it tried. There was snow cold, which plucked at your arms and chapped your lips, but brought real rewards. It was Feo's favorite weather: The snow was soft and good for making snow wolves. There was ice cold, which might take the skin off your palm if you let it, but probably wouldn't if you were careful. Ice cold smelled sharp and knowing. It often came with blue skies and was good for skating. Feo had respect for ice cold. Then there was hard cold, which was when the ice cold got deeper and deeper until at the end of a month you couldn't remember if the summer had ever really existed. Hard cold could be cruel. Birds died in midflight. It was the kind of cold that you booted and kicked your way through.
And then there was blind cold. Blind cold smelled of metal and granite. It took all the sense out of your brain and blew the snow into your eyes until they were glued shut and you had to rub spit into them before they would blink. Blind cold was forty degrees below zero. This was the kind of cold that you didn't sit down to think in, unless you wanted to be found dead in the same place in May or June.
Feo had felt blind cold only once.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Wolf Wilder


Interesting books

Angels
(3.1K)
Angels
by Denis Johnson
The Oathbound
(12.2K)
The Oathbound
by Mercedes Lackey
The Rise of the Hotel Dumort
(10.3K)
The Rise of the Hote...
by Cassandra Clare
The Power of Positive Thinking
(60.8K)
The Power of Positiv...
by Norman Vincent Peale
Rebel Heart
(18.1K)
Rebel Heart
by Moira Young
Invisibility
(8.2K)
Invisibility
by Andrea Cremer

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.