Quotes from Midwives

Chris Bohjalian ·  374 pages

Rating: (139.7K votes)


“Everything about [chance] scares the bejesus out of so many people; it's the this thing they try to avoid at all costs. Don't travel to the Middle East these days - there's a chance something could happen. Don't get involved with that new fellow on Creamery Street - I hear a lot of mud was scraped off his floor after the divorce. Don't have your baby at home - there's a a chance something could go wrong. Don't don't don't... Well, you can't live your life like that! You can't spend your entire life avoiding chance. It's out there, it's inescapable, it's a part of the soul of the world. There are no sure things in this universe, and it's absolutely ridiculous to try and live like there are!”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from Midwives


“No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from Midwives


“Boys look at us like we look at horses: color, height, eyes. tail. They can't help but have preferences.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from Midwives


“Then there were those girls who became midwives: girls who could not get enough of the tiniest of babies - girls who would grow into women who absolutely reveled in the magnificent process of birth...The difference between a woman who becomes an OB and the women who becomes and midwife has less to do with education, philosophy or upbringing than with the depth of her appreciation for the miracle of labor and for life in its moment of emergence.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from Midwives


“...we were too young- and the ground too muddy- for our small part of the earth to move.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from Midwives



“When the sun is strong and the air is warm, however, we shout greetings to one another down the lengths of long driveways and from the windows of our cars as we pass; we hold our heads high as we walk, staring up into the sky with our eyes shut and our faces widened by smiles. We breathe in deeply the summery air, but this sort of inhalation doesn’t result in a sigh; it’s a precursor to a purr, or the moans one might make during a backrub. We no longer mope, we no longer grouse. We are filled with energy. Although”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from Midwives


About the author

Chris Bohjalian
Born place: in White Plains, New York, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Even bad guys hated those kinds of bad guys.”
― Samantha Young, quote from Borrowed Ember


“Such events cannot be ignored, but there is a considerate way of historically treating them. If a well-constituted individual refrains from blazoning aught amiss or calamitous in his family, a nation in the like circumstance may without reproach be equally discreet. Though”
― Herman Melville, quote from Billy Budd and Other Stories


“Later, concealment of pride in humility came to be recognized as a deliberate and useful tactic which Sophia—renamed Catherine—used when confronting crisis and danger. Threatened, she drew around herself a cloak of meekness, deference, and temporary submission.”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman


“No one ever said this marriage was going to be fair,”
― Bella Forrest, quote from A Gate of Night


“The things that are meant to be are the things we can’t control, the things we don’t cause, the things that happen regardless of who or what we are. Like sunsets and snow-fall and natural disasters. I’ve never believed hardship or suffering was meant to be. I’ve never believed relationships were meant to be. We choose. In large part, we choose. We create, we make mistakes, we burn bridges, we build new ones.”
― Amy Harmon, quote from The Song of David


Interesting books

Everwild
(10.6K)
Everwild
by Neal Shusterman
Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn't Have)
(17.9K)
Ten Things We Did (a...
by Sarah Mlynowski
Blindsight
(19.2K)
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
(38.3K)
The River of Doubt:...
by Candice Millard
Death of Kings
(15.7K)
Death of Kings
by Bernard Cornwell
Reconstructing Amelia
(105.8K)
Reconstructing Ameli...
by Kimberly McCreight

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.