Quotes from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone. The only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It's like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it's there and keep falling in. After a while, it's still there, but you learn to walk round it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If we don't go mad once in a while, there's no hope.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“You got up, and you did something. And if trying to find a way when you don't even know you can get there isn't a small miracle; then I don't know what is.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“But maybe it's what the world needs. A little less sense, and a little more faith.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“It was not a life, if lived without love.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He must have driven this way countless times, and yet he had no memory of the scenery. He must have been so caught up in the day's agenda, and arriving punctually at their destination, that the land beyond the car had been no more than a wash of one green, and a backdrop of one hill. Life was very different when you walked through it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, it stands to reason that I'm going to get there. I've begun to think we sit far more than we're supposed to." He smiled. "Why else would we have feet?”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too. The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing it for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Beginnings could happen more than once or in different ways. You could think you were starting something afresh, when actually what you were doing was carrying on as before. He had faced his shortcomings and overcome them and so the real business of walking was happening only now.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“There is so much to the human mind we don't understand. But, you see, if you have faith, you can do anything.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If we can't accept what we don't know, there really is no hope.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“I've begun to think that we sit far more than we're supposed to...Why else would we have feet?”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“you could be ordinary and attempt something extraordinary, without being able to explain it in a logical way.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The past was the past; there was no escaping your beginnings.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“...People would make the decisions they wished to make and some of them would hurt both themselves and those who loved them, and some would pass unnoticed, while others would bring joy.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The least planned part of the journey, however, was the journey itself.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“But it never ceases to amaze me how difficult the things that are supposed to be instinctive really are.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He wished the man would honor the true meaning of words, instead of using them as ammunition.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was his journey to accept the strangeness of others. As a passerby, he was in a place where everything, not only the land, was open. People would feel free to talk, and he was free to listen. To carry a little of them as he went.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“The people he met, the places he passed, were all steps in his journey, and he kept a place inside his heart for each of them.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“He had felt safe with what he had confided. It had been the same with Queenie. You could say things in the car and know she had tucked them somewhere safe among her thoughts, and that she would not judge him for them, or hold it against him in years to come. He supposed that was what friendship was, and regretted all the years he had spent without it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Life was very different when you walked through it.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“There was no escaping what he had realized as he fought for warmth in the night. With or without him,the moon and the wind would go on, rising and falling. The land would keep stretching ahead until it hit the sea. People would keep dying. It made no difference if Harold walked, or trembled, or stayed at home.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“If I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, it stands to reason that I'm going to get there.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“You have to believe. That's what I think. It's not about medicine and all that stuff. You have to believe a person can get better. There is so much in the human mind we don't understand. But, you see, if you have faith, you can do anything.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

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“The heavy black she had worn for years was gone; her dress was of turquoise-colored silk, bright and soft as the evening sky. It belled out full from her hips, and all the skirt was embroidered with thin silver threads and seed pearls and tiny crumbs of crystal, so that it glittered softly, like rain in April. She looked at the magician, speechless. “Do you like it?” “Where—” “It’s like a gown I saw a princess wear once, at the Feast of Sun-return in the New Palace in Havnor,” he said, looking at it with satisfaction. “You told me to show you something worth seeing. I show you yourself.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Tombs of Atuan

“We pay for every little choice we make. You traded everyone else’s life for yours. I traded my life for everyone else’s.”
― Sister Souljah, quote from The Coldest Winter Ever

“For those who are not frightened by the solitude, everything will have a different taste.

In solitude, they will discover the love that might otherwise arrive unnoticed.

In solitude, they will understand and respect the love that left them.

In solitude, they will be able to decide whether it is worth asking that lost love to come back or if they should simply let it go and set off along a new path.

In solitude, they will learn that saying ‘No’ does not always show a lack of generosity and that saying ‘Yes’ is not always a virtue.

And those who are alone at this moment, need never be frightened by the words of the devil: ‘You’re wasting your time.’

Or by the chief demon’s even more potent words: ‘No one cares about you.’

The Divine Energy is listening to us when we speak to other people, but also when we are still and silent and able to accept solitude as a blessing.

And when we achieve that harmony, we receive more than we asked for.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Manuscript Found in Accra

“The amusement fled from Royce's face and with a groan he pulled her roughly against his chest, crushing her to him. "Jenny," he whispered hoarsely, burying his face in her fragrant hair. "Jenny, I love you."
She melted against him, molding her body to the rigid contours of his, offering her lips up for his fierce, devouring kiss, then she took his face between both her hands. Leaning back slightly against his arm, her melting blue eyes gazing deeply into his, his wife replied in a shaky voice, "I think, my lord, I love you more.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from A Kingdom of Dreams

“And now he was dead, his soul fled down to the Sunless Country and his body lying cold in the cold mud, somewhere in the city's wake.”
― Philip Reeve, quote from Mortal Engines

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