Quotes from State of Wonder

“Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don't know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it's not. It's a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“He used to say we all had a compass inside of us and what we needed to do was to find it and to follow it.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“No one tells the truth to people they don't actually know, and if they do it is a horrible trait. Everyone wants something smaller, something neater than the truth.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“It is said the sesta is one of the only gifts the Europeans brought to South America, but I imagine the Brazilians could have figured out how to sleep in the afternoon without having to endure centuries of murder and enslavement.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“She understood in life that a person was only allowed one trip down to hell.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one's partner on both the left and the right.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“But we cannot unbraid the story of another person’s life and take out all the parts that don’t suit our purposes and put forth only the ones that do.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“One must not be shy where language is concerned.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Like her mother and all her mother's people before her, those inexhaustible blondes who staked their claims in verdant prairies, Marina was cut from Minnesota, the soil and the starry night. Instead of growing up inquisitive and restless, she had developed a profound desire to stay, as if her center of gravity was so low it connected her directly to this particular patch of earth.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Minnesota! It smelled like raspberries and sunlight and tender grass. It was summer and everything was more beautiful than any picture she had carried with her....There had never been a place in the world as beautiful as Minnesota.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Every drop of rain hit the ground with such force it bounced back up again, giving the earth the appearance of something boiling.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“...And there it went, the burden of her lifetime, taken.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“You throw a person in the river and then make a spectacle of jumping in to save them.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived. That is how one respects indigenous people. If you pay any attention at all you’ll realize that you could never convert them to your way of life anyway. They are an intractable race. Any progress you advance to them will be undone before your back is turned. You might as well come down here to unbend the river. The point, then, is to observe the life they themselves have put in place and learn from it.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Never be so focused on what you are looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“The part when they are together for a while, the two of them, before things go wrong. The way things ended always obliterated the genuine happiness that had come before and that shouldn't be the case.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“This was her moment, the perfect now.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Questions are for the benefit of every student, not just the one raising his hand. If you don't have the starch to stand up in class and admit what you don't understand, then I don't have the time to explain it to you. If you don't have a policy against nonsense you can wind up with a dozen timid little rabbits lined up in the hall outside your office, all waiting to whisper the same imbecilic question in your ear.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“I saw it myself. An endless succession of mongrels and malingerers, the laziest dropouts who fancied themselves explorers. He made his policy clear: he was not responsible for their food, their shelter, their safety, or their health. He didn't waste his time discouraging them because frankly there was no discouragement they could not withstand. All of the energy they could have put into their intelligence they had used to develop their tenacity. But what I quickly learned was that their tenacity was for going, not for staying. Once they were out on the trail they fell like flies. Some took a day, two days, others were gone in a matter of hours, and Dr. Rapp never stopped for them. He remained beautifully consistent: he was to work and he would continue to work. He would not ferry back the weak and the lame. They had chosen to get themselves in and they would simply have to figure the means to get themselves out. People were quick to accept these terms until they themselves were weak. Then they changed their tune entirely, then they said Dr. Rapp was heartless. They couldn't slander him as a scientist but they said no end of scurrilous things about him as a man. He hadn't rescued them! He hadn't been their father and mother! I will tell you, none of that troubled his sleep. If he had made them his responsibility, either by dissuading them from their ambitions or by bailing them out of their folly, the greatest botanist of our time would have been reduced to a babysitter. It would have been an incalculable blow to science, all in the name of saving the stupid.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Marina brushed her hand across the back of her neck and dislodged something with a hard shell.

She had learned in time to brush instead of slap as slapping only served to pump the entire contents of the insect, which was doubtlessly already burrowed into the skin with some entomological protuberance, straight into the bloodstream.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Far outside the city the tree frogs were calling her, and the deep, rhythmic pulse of their voices set the blood flow to her heart.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Marina Singh: "You went to Radcliffe."
Annick Swenson: "I didn't love it.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“Maybe he was concerned, or bored, or inappropriately friendly, or midwestern friendly.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

“The root system changes the acidity level in the soil so that nothing much will grow here except for the trees and a little bit of grass. In a sense you could say the tree poisons the area it inhabits to make sure that nothing else will survive in its space and take the nutrients out of the soil or grow taller and block out the sunlight.”
― Ann Patchett, quote from State of Wonder

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“So? When do you want to be turned?” “I didn’t agree to turn,” Valerie squawked with amazement. “You haven’t, but you will,” he said with a shrug. “What makes you think that?” she asked warily. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to have to wipe your memories and have you returned to your life and neither of us wants that,” he said simply. “Anders said I could have time to decide,” Valerie protested, and then frowned and added, “And what do you mean, neither of us wants that? Why would you care?” “You saved my wife and children, Valerie. And Leigh adores you. You’re family now.” “Oh.” She stared at him nonplussed, wondering if he meant that. “I mean it,” he said firmly. “Leigh has decided it’s so, so it’s so. She’d be disappointed if you didn’t become one of us and I won’t have her disappointed.” Valerie scowled slightly. The last part sounded like a threat. “As for Anders saying you could have time to decide,” Lucian continued. “What do you need time for? The nanos have paired you, you’re meant to be together.” “You make it sound so simple,” she said wearily. “It is simple. Don’t make it hard.” “Great, the nanos paired us. But what about love?” she asked. Lucian shifted impatiently. “Do you like him?” “Yes,” she admitted. “Respect him?” She nodded. “Trust him?” “Of course,” she said without hesitation. Lucian nodded and said dryly, “I don’t need to ask if you want him sexually.” Valerie flushed and raised her chin. “All those things combined make up love,” Lucian assured her. “Whether you realize it or not, you already do love him.” Valerie swallowed, knowing in her heart he was right. She bit her lip, and then blurted, “But does he love me?” “Ah.” Lucian nodded. “So that’s the holdup, is it? He hasn’t said it yet.” Valerie sighed and looked away, muttering, “When he asked me to be his life mate he went on about finding peace and being able to relax and be at peace. It was all peace, peace, peace,” she added with frustration and glanced to Lucian, eyes narrowing when she caught his lips twitching. If he laughed at her, she would— “Don’t you feel at peace with him?” he asked, and then added, “When you’re not hot and bothered, I mean.” “Well, yeah, but—” “But you want to hear that he loves you,” Lucian said and shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to ask him then.” “Ask him if he loves me?” she asked with dismay. Lucian sighed with exasperation. “You took on Igor and staked him, saving yourself and six other women in the process—” “Four,” she corrected unhappily. “Two died, remember.” “And then,” he continued heavily, ignoring her interruption. “You took on Ambrose and saved my wife and unborn twins by crashing the van you were all in and repeatedly bashing the man over the head until help got there. You are not a coward, Valerie, so stop acting like one. Ask him. And when he says yes he loves you, I will personally oversee the turning and pay for the wedding.”
― Lynsay Sands, quote from Immortal Ever After

“When you’re a part of society there are certain behaviors that aren’t okay. If you do these behaviors and then feel nothing, that’s worse. But I’ve been trying to determine when I’ve ever been a part of society.”
― Kitty Thomas, quote from Comfort Food

“Anything you do fully is an alone journey.”
― Natalie Goldberg, quote from Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Outside, gray clouds stretched to infinity. Were my parents and Mikey out there somewhere? I imagined them soaring like birds through the heavens, and wondered how, in a sky so endless, could there be no room for me?”
― Karen Amanda Hooper, quote from Grasping at Eternity

“I'll explain it to you. To me it's more than a game." She touches her chest and says, "When you love something as much as I love football, you just feel it inside. Did you ever love doing something so bad that it consumed you?"


"A long time ago."


"That's what football is to me. It's my passion, my life… my escape. When I play, I forget everything that sucks in my life. And when we win…" She looks down like she's embarrassed to admit what she's about to reveal. "I know this is going to sound stupid, but when we win I think miracles can happen.”
― Simone Elkeles, quote from Wild Cards

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