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Marilynne Robinson

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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
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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
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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
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It's television that makes things seem important, whether they are or not.
From Home
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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
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Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.
From Gilead
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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
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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
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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
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There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.
From Home
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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It's television that makes things seem important, whether they are or not.
From Home
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.
From Gilead
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
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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
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There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.
From Home
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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
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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
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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
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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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
It's television that makes things seem important, whether they are or not.
From Home
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.
From Gilead
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.
From Home
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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
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