Marilynne Robinson Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

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Nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense.

Marilynne Robinson
Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was.

Marilynne Robinson
Not deciding to act would be identical with deciding not to act.

Marilynne Robinson
You never know when you might be seeing someone for the last time.

Marilynne Robinson
Fiction that does not acknowledge this at least tacitly is not true.

Marilynne Robinson
It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them.

Marilynne Robinson
When we did not move or speak, there was no proof that we were there at all.

Marilynne Robinson
The basis of democracy is the willingness to assume well about other people.

Marilynne Robinson
Fact explains nothing. On the contrary, it is fact that requires explanation.

Marilynne Robinson
There is an absolute disjunction between our Father's love and our deserving.

Marilynne Robinson
This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.

Marilynne Robinson
For me writing has always felt like praying even when I wasn't writing prayers.

Marilynne Robinson
That is to say, I pray for you. And there's an intimacy in it. That's the truth.

Marilynne Robinson
Salvation was universally considered to be much more becoming in women than in men.

Marilynne Robinson
There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient

Marilynne Robinson
We inhabit, we are part of, a reality for which explanation is much too poor and small.

Marilynne Robinson
That's one good thing about the way life is, that no one can know you if you don't let them.

Marilynne Robinson
What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be.

Marilynne Robinson
It is a good thing to know what it is to be poor, and a better thing if you can do it in company.

Marilynne Robinson
It all means more than I can tell you. So you must not judge what I know by what I find words for.

Marilynne Robinson
Love is holy because it is like grace—the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.

Marilynne Robinson
And often enough, when we think we are protecting ourselves, we are struggling against our rescuer.

Marilynne Robinson
A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine.

Marilynne Robinson
Pity and charity may be at root an attempt to propitiate the dark powers that have not touched us yet.

Marilynne Robinson
The locus of the human mystery is perception of this world. From it proceeds every thought, every art.

Marilynne Robinson
The great truth that is too often forgotten is that it is in the nature of people to do good to one another.

Marilynne Robinson
Fiction may be, whatever else, an exercise in the capacity for imaginative love, or sympathy, or identification,

Marilynne Robinson
Dawn and its excesses always reminded me of heaven, a place where I have always known I would not be comfortable.

Marilynne Robinson
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.

Marilynne Robinson
Rejoice with those who rejoice." I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep.

Marilynne Robinson