Marilynne Robinson - Understand Quotes

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There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding.... If you forgive, he would say, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace.

Marilynne Robinson

People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that's true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives.

Marilynne Robinson

Any human face is a claim on you, because you can't help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it. But this is truest of the face of an infant. I consider that to be one kind of vision, as mystical as any.

Marilynne Robinson