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Marilynne Robinson

Other
Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, "Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it." Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire.
From Housekeeping
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
It's television that makes things seem important, whether they are or not.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Television
You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all . . . except what you can't be rid of.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
We are in the process of disabling our most distinctive achievement - our educational system - in the name of making the country more like itself.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
It seems to me some people just go around lookin' to get their faith unsettled. That has been the fashion for the last hundred years or so.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, "Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it." Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire.
From Housekeeping
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
It's television that makes things seem important, whether they are or not.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Television
You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all . . . except what you can't be rid of.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
We are in the process of disabling our most distinctive achievement - our educational system - in the name of making the country more like itself.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
It seems to me some people just go around lookin' to get their faith unsettled. That has been the fashion for the last hundred years or so.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, "Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it." Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire.
From Housekeeping
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
It's television that makes things seem important, whether they are or not.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Television
You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Life
I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Relationships
I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all . . . except what you can't be rid of.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Hope
We are in the process of disabling our most distinctive achievement - our educational system - in the name of making the country more like itself.
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Education
There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.
From Home
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Inspirational
It seems to me some people just go around lookin' to get their faith unsettled. That has been the fashion for the last hundred years or so.
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion
It seems to me there is less meanness in atheism, by a good measure. It seems that the spirit of religious self-righteousness this article deplores is precisely the spirit in which it is written. Of course he's right about many things, one of them being the destructive potency of religious self-righteousness. (p. 146)
From Gilead
NOT YET RATING ▼
Topic: Religion