Marilynne Robinson - Gilead (2004)

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The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.

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

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

Marilynne Robinson
This morning the world by moonlight seemed to be an immemorial acquaintance I had always meant to befriend. If there was ever a chance, it had passed. Strange to say, I feel a little that way about myself.

Marilynne Robinson
I have always liked the phrase "nursing a grudge " because many people are tender of their resentments as of the thing nearest their hearts.

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

Marilynne Robinson
When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?

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
I've developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books.

Marilynne Robinson
That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either.

Marilynne Robinson
I can't believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. That would mean forgetting that we had lived, humanly speaking. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life.

Marilynne Robinson
Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing. So I am right to remember it as a blessed time, and myself as waiting in confidence, even if I had no idea what i was waiting for.

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
Christianity is a life, not a doctrine... I'm not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I'm saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own.

Marilynne Robinson
That is how life goes—we send our children into the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them seem to be a kind of wilderness unto themselves. But there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord's.

Marilynne Robinson
Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.

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

Marilynne Robinson
People who feel any sort of regret where you are concerned will suppose you are angry, and they will see anger in what you do, even if you're just quietly going about a life of your own choosing. They will make you doubt yourself, which, depending on cases, can be a severe distraction and a waste of time. This is a thing I wish I had understood much earlier than I did.

Marilynne Robinson
But it's your existence I love you for, mainly. Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined.

Marilynne Robinson
These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice.

Marilynne Robinson
The twinkling of an eye. That is the most wonderful expression. I've thought from time to time it was the best thing in life, that little incandescence you see in people when the charm of a thing strikes them, or the humor of it. 'The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart.' That's a fact.

Marilynne Robinson
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.

Marilynne Robinson
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.

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

Marilynne Robinson
It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it... so I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.

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

Marilynne Robinson
I wrote almost all of it in the deepest hope and conviction. Sifting my thoughts and choosing my words. Trying to say what was true. And I'll tell you frankly, that was wonderful.

Marilynne Robinson
She closed one eye and looked at me and said, "I know there is a blessing in this somewhere." It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health.

Marilynne Robinson