Mary Doria Russell Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

Faced with the Divine, people took refuge in the banal, as though answering a cosmic multiple-choice question: If you saw a burning bush, would you (a) call 911, (b) get the hot dogs, or (c) recognize God? A vanishingly small number of people would recognize God, Anne had decided years before, and most of them had simply missed a dose of Thorazine.

Mary Doria Russell
The sign of a good decision is the multiplicity of reasons for it.

Mary Doria Russell
Shall I tell you why young men love war?... In peace, there are a hundred questions with a thousand answers! In war, there is only one question with one right answer.... Going to war makes you a man. It is emotionally exciting and morally restful.

Mary Doria Russell
Indulge me, John. Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I'm presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money.

Mary Doria Russell
Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between "That doesn't make sense" and "I don't understand.

Mary Doria Russell
House-training, I must tell you, is a formality that can elude young dachshunds for some time; this is particularly true in climates that affront their sensibilities with outrageous meteorological insults. Rain, for example, or a startling gust of wind.

Mary Doria Russell
When it comes down to it, I don't have much in the way of advice to offer you, but here it is: Read to children. Vote. And never buy anything from a man who's selling fear.

Mary Doria Russell
Love is a debt, she thought. When the bill comes, you pay in grief.

Mary Doria Russell
You know what's the most terrifying thing about admitting that you're in love? You're just naked. You put yourself in harm's way and you lay down all your defences. No clothes, no weapons. Nowhere to hide, completely vulnerable. The only thing that makes it tolerable is to believe the other person loves you back and you can trust him not to hurt you.

Mary Doria Russell
One minute, she was in the State of Puerto Rico and the next minute, she was in the State of Persistent Vegetables.

Mary Doria Russell
Sandoz turned and accepted the book, looking at the spine. "Aeschylus?"
Wordlessly, Guiuliani pointed out the passage, and Emilio studied it a while, slowly translating the Greek in his mind. Finally, he said, " ' In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, againstour will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' "

Mary Doria Russell
I believe in God the way I believe in quarks. People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they've learned, I'd find quarks and God just like they did.

Mary Doria Russell
The Jewish sages also tell us that God dances when His children defeat Him in argument, when they stand on their feet and use their minds. So questions like Anne's are worth asking. To ask them is a very fine kind of human behavior. If we keep demanding that God yield up His answers, perhaps some day we will understand them. And then we will be something more than clever apes, and we shall dance with God.

Mary Doria Russell
Dachshunds have their own agenda and can be stubborn about seeing their plans through to completion. What Rosie lacked in consistency, she made up for in enthusiasm. Most of the time when I called her name, she sprinted back, her long ears cocked and flying like a little girl's pigtails. Each encounter was a glorious reunion, even if we'd been parted for only a minute or two. I had never felt so loved.

Mary Doria Russell
When the preponderance of human beings choose to act with justice and generosity and kindness, then learning and love and decency prevail. When the preponderance of human beings choose power, greed, and indifference to suffering, the world is filled with war, poverty, and cruelty.

Mary Doria Russell
See that's where it falls apart for me!" Anne cried. "What sticks in my throat is that God gets the credit but never the blame. I just can't swallow that kind of theological candy. Either God's in charge or he's not...

Mary Doria Russell
Watching him with one eye, she wondered if men ever figured out that they were more appealing when they were pursuing their own work than when they were pursuing a woman.

Mary Doria Russell
I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.

Mary Doria Russell
No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there's always a thread of grace.

Mary Doria Russell