Quotes from Of Things Gone Astray

“No matter how old we get, we somehow can never convince ourselves that whatever trial we're in the middle of is only temporary. No matter how may trials we've had in the past, and no matter how well we remember that they eventually were there no longer, we're sure that this one, this one right now, is a permanent state of affairs. But it's not. By nature humans are temporary beings.'
'You're saying i just have to ride it out until it goes away.'
'Not at all, my dear. I'm saying you have to strive for a solution and trust that eventually there will be one.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“There's nothing like forgiveness for making a person feel guilty. There's nothing like understanding for making a person feel undeserving. Because if someone is willing to forgive a weakness, they deserve better than to have put up with it.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“She stopped as soon as she'd come through and the two of them stand there for fully five minutes, for forever, just looking. Staring at each other, right in the eyes, across the space between then, both knowing they have an eternity in which to touch.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“That's a very strongly defined term, dear, 'wrong choices' and i'm not sure it's helpful. There are no wrong or right choices, necessarily, just those you make or don't make and the consequences. And by extension, how you deal with the consequences.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“No matter how many trials we’ve had in the past, and no matter how well we remember that they eventually were there no longer, we’re sure that this one, this one right now, is a permanent state of affairs. But it’s not.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“There are no wrong or right choices, necessarily, just those you make or don't make and the consequences. And by extension, how you deal with the consequences.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“If left unused, conversations can grow rusty over time. The opinions and feelings we've expressed before, when left to their own devices, can grow sluggish and curmudgeonly. They become too used to sitting alone and unconsidered, and if you ask them to move, their joints can ache, or parts of them can crumble away. Sometimes you can return to an opinion you've not visited in years and find it's died and rotted away without you even noticing. Sometimes a feeling we assume we'll have for ever can abandon us and leave a gap we don't notice until we suddenly feel the need to call upon that feeling.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“Robert was silent for a moment, watching his daughter try to coax the ladybird off the rug and onto her finger. He wanted to warn the bug away; the finger of a five-year-old girl is a safe place for no one.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

“I can’t help but feel,’ Mara went on, ‘that the reason for everything that’s going on with Rob at the moment is my having made the wrong choices.’ ‘That’s a very strongly defined term, dear, “wrong choices”, and I’m not sure it’s helpful. There are no wrong or right choices, necessarily, just those you make or don’t make and the consequences. And by extension, how you deal with the consequences.”
― Janina Matthewson, quote from Of Things Gone Astray

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Popular quotes

“In the lacquered house the storms of life took their course quietly; nevertheless the storms of life here took their course calamitously: they did not thunder with events; they did not shine a cleansing light into the inhabitants’ hearts with arrows of lightning; but from a hoarse throat they wrung the air in a torrent of poisonous fluids; and in the consciousness of the inhabitants cerebral games swirled round, like dense gases in hermetically sealed jars.”
― Andrei Bely, quote from Petersburg

“No matter what happens, no matter how bad things get, as long as we have love, there's always hope for salvation.”
― Travis Luedke, quote from Blood Slave

“Ramos walked away. “Two.” “Got him.” Pike stayed with Cole and Park, letting Stone pick up Ramos. They had designated Park as Target One and Ramos as Target Two. Jon was on Two. If the meet went bad, Jon would drop Ramos and Pike would drop Park. They would then lay down suppressing fire so Cole could escape. If Cole was killed or wounded, they would terminate everyone in the tow yard. “What I’m saying is, I know time is of the essence an’ all that, but trusting these people to get him inside and keep their pieholes shut is what we in the trade call ‘dubious.’ Two and his boys mounting up. Hasta luego, shitbirds.” “Rog.”
― Robert Crais, quote from Taken

“The South believed an educated Negro to be a dangerous Negro. And the South was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, quote from The Souls of Black Folk

“la admiración por el Padre, símbolo de lo cerrado y agresivo, capaz de chingar y abrir, se transparenta en una expresión que empleamos cuando queremos imponer a otro nuestra superioridad: "Yo soy tu padre" […] No es el fundador de un pueblo; no es el patriarca que ejerce la patria protestad; no es rey, juez, jefe de clan. Es el poder, aislado en su misma potencia, sin relación ni compromiso con el mundo exterior. Es la incomunicación pura, la soledad que se devora a sí misma y devora lo que toca. No pertenece a nuestro mundo; no es de nuestra ciudad; no vive en nuestro barrio. Viene de lejos, está lejos siempre. Es el extraño. Es imposible no advertir la semejanza que guarda la figura del "macho" con la del conquistador español. Ése es el modelo –más mítico que real– que rige las representaciones que el pueblo mexicano se ha hecho de los poderosos: caciques, señores feudales, hacendados, políticos, generales, capitanes de industria. Todos ellos son "machos, "chingones".”
― Octavio Paz, quote from The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings

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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.

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