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

“could not even manage to reply. “It’s because I think it of vital importance that such scenes should be avoided in the future that I suggest we separate permanently with a view to seeking a divorce when it becomes possible for us to do so. I have no grounds for divorcing you, as I’m sure you realize, but if I leave you now and insist on remaining at Allengate without your consent you will eventually be able to seek a divorce on the grounds of adultery coupled with desertion. I believe the period of desertion has to be at least two years, so we would have to wait before commencing proceedings, but unfortunately since you cannot divorce me for adultery alone there’s no other alternative open to us. Now, I know divorce will mean a considerable amount of scandal and I’m sure a great many people will disapprove and be shocked, but I dare say most of the criticism will fall upon me and frankly I’m willing to endure a great deal to terminate this situation in the most expedient way available. You know and I know that our marriage is irrevocably finished. My one concern now is that we act in a way most beneficial to the children, and in my opinion”
― Susan Howatch, quote from Penmarric

“You don’t have to be strong all the time. Let me take it, Beauty. Let me be your rock. Let ME fight. For Christ sake, let me be who you need.”
― Harper Sloan, quote from Cage

“it was going to be all right.
at last.
for a while.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from Notes of a Dirty Old Man

“I wonder this: If you take a woman and push her to the edge, how will she behave?”
― Anita Shreve, quote from The Weight of Water

“Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee ... mark! ... I love thee -- in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning, quote from Sonnets from the Portuguese

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