Search quotes

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
acf53b1	Then one morning she'd begun to feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn't remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she'd realized again what she'd learned at five when her mother left - that what made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting the small things first, the s..	grief sorrow endure forgetting remembering memory	Ron Rash
a41946e	But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life.	uncertainty	Ron Rash
9db0a39	It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start	life tears	Ron Rash
8335927	Don't love anything that can be taken away.	love	Ron Rash
ee300f3	She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she'd thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130)	words loneliness interraction speach starvation	Ron Rash
a6c1a3f	What made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting small things first... it's amazing how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old bar..	pain loss sadness life love	Ron Rash
1e7c2c0	You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, things got narrow real quick.	life mistakes	Ron Rash
f420213	Nothing is but what is now	past life-and-living present-moment	Ron Rash
11fab54	It's ever been the way of the man of science or philosophy. Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can't see nothing." - Snipes (185)"	enlightenment science philosophy sight ignorance	Ron Rash
148784d	It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you'd eaten the same thing. Reminded you there were good days in life, when precious little else did. (268)	comfort good-times food	Ron Rash
f6c5c21	And darkness. You can't see it no more than you can see air, but when it's all around you sure enough know it.		Ron Rash
dd17f9c	She walks in beauty.	irony	Ron Rash
5b04f32	One thing's sure and nothing surer. The rich get richer and the poor get- children	social-classes rich poor	Ron Rash
d9c28d7	We want what's in this world but we also want what ain't.	life the-world impossible-things possible	Ron Rash
2337b90	Others can make us vulnerable and the sooner such vulnerabilities are dealt with the better	love vulnerable humans	Ron Rash
e27a8b8	The woman doesn't look up. It's as if she's deaf. Maybe she is. Maybe she's like the Cambodian women I've read about, the ones who witnessed so many atrocities that they have willed themselves blind. Maybe that's what you have to do sometimes to survive. You kill off part of yourself, your hearing or eyesight, your capacity for hope.		Ron Rash
688be7c	A place where something so terrible had happened shouldn't continue to exist in the world	violence tragedy people places	Ron Rash
c0e10f2	Spend a long time alone, especially if you're someone who's never been that social to begin with, and you find yourself craving solitude.		Ron Rash
0b40c9f	A small profit it better than a big loss	loss life profit choices	Ron Rash
5dad745	Maybe calling it being hitched ain't the prettiest way to say you're married, but it's the truth to my mind and true in a good way, because you're working together and depending on each other, and you're sharing the load.		Ron Rash
9c95939	Some claim heaven has streets of gold and all such things, but I hold a different notion. When we're there, we'll say to the angels, why, a lot of heaven's glory was in the place we come from. And you know what them angels will say? They'll say yes, pilgrim, and how often did you notice? What did you seek?		Ron Rash
7cf8da0	You men notice so little, Pemberton. Physical strength is your gender's sole advantage.		Ron Rash
229fe92	I don't even have a choice. Rachel thought how that was pretty much true of everything now, that you got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, and she hadn't, things got narrow real quick. Like trying to wade a river, she thought. You take a wrong step and set your foot on a wobbly rock or in a drop-off and you're swept away, and all you can do then is try to survive. (83)	survival decisions	Ron Rash
14e0353	Dead and still in the world was worse than dead and in the ground. Dead in the ground at least gave you the hope of heaven.	heaven inspirational	Ron Rash
3941fc2	Water has its own archaeology, not a layering but a leveling, and thus is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface.		Ron Rash
aeafea5	We had some good times at school. I didn't know how good those times was till I left, but I guess that's the way of it	fun happiness life schooling	Ron Rash
6e6e124	Superstitions are just coincidence or ignorance.		Ron Rash
bc0a3b1	A kind of annihilation, was what Serena called their coupling, and though Pemberton would never have thought to describe it that way, he knew her words had named the thing exactly.	sex passion	Ron Rash
238f9ef	She'd never known fear had a taste, but it did.		Ron Rash
82ac233	Not for the first time, it occurred to me that sorrow could be purified into song the same way a piece of coal is purified into a diamond.	pain sorrow	Ron Rash
b932a84	Jody had watched other classmates, including many in college prep, enter such a life with an impatient fatalism. They got pregnant or arrested or simply dropped out. Some boys, more defiant, filled the junkyards with crushed metal. Crosses garlanded with flowers and keepsakes marked roadsides where they'd died. You could see it coming in the smirking yearbook photos they'd left behind.		Ron Rash
ce8bba9	The lift of her heart she'd felt on the outcrop she now felt again, and it wasn't just love. She'd felt love before, known its depths when her mother died. This was something rarer. Happiness, Laurel thought, that must be what this is.	love	Ron Rash
c4a3200	There Peter was, looking straight into the very eyes of God, walking the Sea of Galilee and then all of the sudden up to his neck in water. Some would argue he lacked the true believing, I say he had enough faith to go it a ways, and when he couldn't go farther Christ fetched him up. What am I saying? I'm saying that the walk to God ain't easy for the best of us. Now some would say, Preacher, if Peter had misdoubts there in the very glory o..	heaven sorrow hope peter walk-on-water seek	Ron Rash
10b0c03	It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you'd eaten the same thing.		Ron Rash
80c1d12	Then it became clear that it was a song, the loneliest sort of song because the notes changed so little, like one bird calling and waiting for another to answer. It was as lonely a sound as she'd ever heard.		Ron Rash
0ea75c9	He carries what he feels for people deep inside. Even as a kid he was that way," Aunt Margaret said. "Your momma knows that." But I had wondered then as I did now what good love was that couldn't be expressed."	love	Ron Rash
cae2b67	Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. Those who use it and those who endure it are turned to stone... a soul which has entered the province of force will not escape this except by a miracle.		Ron Rash
281bc61	The worst thing the nineteen sixties did to this country was introduce drugs to rednecks,		Ron Rash
4bf4d4e	She is waiting. Each spring the hard rains come and the creek rises and quickens, and more of the bank peels off, silting the water brown ad bringing to light another layer of dark earth, Decades pass. She is patient, shelled inside the blue tarp. Each spring the water laps closer, paling roots, loosening stones, scuffing and smoothing. She is waiting and one day a bit of blue appears in the bank and then more blue. The rain pauses and the ..		Ron Rash
d785ed9	It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming into it. Tears from the very start.		Ron Rash
ebb671f	I listened to time clicking like hooves on pavement. But time isn't something you can rein in. It moves on without pause, taking us with it no matter how much we wish it otherwise.	time	Ron Rash
d54cf51	She had not remembered then what she remembers now, a memory like something buried in river silt that finally works free and rises to the surface...		Ron Rash
43f6a0e	Something Rich and Strange She was less of what she had been, the blue rubbed from her eyes, flesh freed from the chandelier of bone. He touched what once had been a hand. The river whispered to him that it would not be long now.		Ron Rash
053d7df	What about you, Snipes?" Dunbar asked. "You think there to be mountain lions up here or is it just folks' imaginings?" Snipes pondered the question a few moments before speaking. They's many a man of science would claim there aint because you got no irredeemable evidence like panther scat or fur or tooth or tail. In other words, some part of the animal in questions. Or better yet having the actual critter itself, the whole think kit and cab..	courage faith science darkness love philosophy	Ron Rash

acf53b1

Then one morning she'd begun to feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn't remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she'd realized again what she'd learned at five when her mother left - that what made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting the small things first, the s..

grief sorrow endure forgetting remembering memory

Ron Rash

a41946e

But nothing is solid and permanent. Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. You don't need to read history books to know that. You only have to know the history of your own life.

uncertainty

Ron Rash

9db0a39

It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start

life tears

Ron Rash

8335927

Don't love anything that can be taken away.

love

Ron Rash

ee300f3

She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she'd thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130)

words loneliness interraction speach starvation

Ron Rash

a6c1a3f

What made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting small things first... it's amazing how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old bar..

pain loss sadness life love

Ron Rash

1e7c2c0

You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, things got narrow real quick.

life mistakes

Ron Rash

f420213

Nothing is but what is now

past life-and-living present-moment

Ron Rash

11fab54

It's ever been the way of the man of science or philosophy. Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can't see nothing." - Snipes (185)"

enlightenment science philosophy sight ignorance

Ron Rash

148784d

It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you'd eaten the same thing. Reminded you there were good days in life, when precious little else did. (268)

comfort good-times food

Ron Rash

f6c5c21

And darkness. You can't see it no more than you can see air, but when it's all around you sure enough know it.

Ron Rash

dd17f9c

She walks in beauty.

irony

Ron Rash

5b04f32

One thing's sure and nothing surer. The rich get richer and the poor get- children

social-classes rich poor

Ron Rash

d9c28d7

We want what's in this world but we also want what ain't.

life the-world impossible-things possible

Ron Rash

2337b90

Others can make us vulnerable and the sooner such vulnerabilities are dealt with the better

love vulnerable humans

Ron Rash

e27a8b8

The woman doesn't look up. It's as if she's deaf. Maybe she is. Maybe she's like the Cambodian women I've read about, the ones who witnessed so many atrocities that they have willed themselves blind. Maybe that's what you have to do sometimes to survive. You kill off part of yourself, your hearing or eyesight, your capacity for hope.

Ron Rash

688be7c

A place where something so terrible had happened shouldn't continue to exist in the world

violence tragedy people places

Ron Rash

c0e10f2

Spend a long time alone, especially if you're someone who's never been that social to begin with, and you find yourself craving solitude.

Ron Rash

0b40c9f

A small profit it better than a big loss

loss life profit choices

Ron Rash

5dad745

Maybe calling it being hitched ain't the prettiest way to say you're married, but it's the truth to my mind and true in a good way, because you're working together and depending on each other, and you're sharing the load.

Ron Rash

9c95939

Some claim heaven has streets of gold and all such things, but I hold a different notion. When we're there, we'll say to the angels, why, a lot of heaven's glory was in the place we come from. And you know what them angels will say? They'll say yes, pilgrim, and how often did you notice? What did you seek?

Ron Rash

7cf8da0

You men notice so little, Pemberton. Physical strength is your gender's sole advantage.

Ron Rash

229fe92

I don't even have a choice. Rachel thought how that was pretty much true of everything now, that you got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, and she hadn't, things got narrow real quick. Like trying to wade a river, she thought. You take a wrong step and set your foot on a wobbly rock or in a drop-off and you're swept away, and all you can do then is try to survive. (83)

survival decisions

Ron Rash

14e0353

Dead and still in the world was worse than dead and in the ground. Dead in the ground at least gave you the hope of heaven.

heaven inspirational

Ron Rash

3941fc2

Water has its own archaeology, not a layering but a leveling, and thus is truer to our sense of the past, because what is memory but near and far events spread and smoothed beneath the present's surface.

Ron Rash

aeafea5

We had some good times at school. I didn't know how good those times was till I left, but I guess that's the way of it

fun happiness life schooling

Ron Rash

6e6e124

Superstitions are just coincidence or ignorance.

Ron Rash

bc0a3b1

A kind of annihilation, was what Serena called their coupling, and though Pemberton would never have thought to describe it that way, he knew her words had named the thing exactly.

sex passion

Ron Rash

238f9ef

She'd never known fear had a taste, but it did.

Ron Rash

82ac233

Not for the first time, it occurred to me that sorrow could be purified into song the same way a piece of coal is purified into a diamond.

pain sorrow

Ron Rash

b932a84

Jody had watched other classmates, including many in college prep, enter such a life with an impatient fatalism. They got pregnant or arrested or simply dropped out. Some boys, more defiant, filled the junkyards with crushed metal. Crosses garlanded with flowers and keepsakes marked roadsides where they'd died. You could see it coming in the smirking yearbook photos they'd left behind.

Ron Rash

ce8bba9

The lift of her heart she'd felt on the outcrop she now felt again, and it wasn't just love. She'd felt love before, known its depths when her mother died. This was something rarer. Happiness, Laurel thought, that must be what this is.

love

Ron Rash

c4a3200

There Peter was, looking straight into the very eyes of God, walking the Sea of Galilee and then all of the sudden up to his neck in water. Some would argue he lacked the true believing, I say he had enough faith to go it a ways, and when he couldn't go farther Christ fetched him up. What am I saying? I'm saying that the walk to God ain't easy for the best of us. Now some would say, Preacher, if Peter had misdoubts there in the very glory o..

heaven sorrow hope peter walk-on-water seek

Ron Rash

10b0c03

It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you'd eaten the same thing.

Ron Rash

80c1d12

Then it became clear that it was a song, the loneliest sort of song because the notes changed so little, like one bird calling and waiting for another to answer. It was as lonely a sound as she'd ever heard.

Ron Rash

0ea75c9

He carries what he feels for people deep inside. Even as a kid he was that way," Aunt Margaret said. "Your momma knows that." But I had wondered then as I did now what good love was that couldn't be expressed."

love

Ron Rash

cae2b67

Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. Those who use it and those who endure it are turned to stone... a soul which has entered the province of force will not escape this except by a miracle.

Ron Rash

281bc61

The worst thing the nineteen sixties did to this country was introduce drugs to rednecks,

Ron Rash

4bf4d4e

She is waiting. Each spring the hard rains come and the creek rises and quickens, and more of the bank peels off, silting the water brown ad bringing to light another layer of dark earth, Decades pass. She is patient, shelled inside the blue tarp. Each spring the water laps closer, paling roots, loosening stones, scuffing and smoothing. She is waiting and one day a bit of blue appears in the bank and then more blue. The rain pauses and the ..

Ron Rash

d785ed9

It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming into it. Tears from the very start.

Ron Rash

ebb671f

I listened to time clicking like hooves on pavement. But time isn't something you can rein in. It moves on without pause, taking us with it no matter how much we wish it otherwise.

time

Ron Rash

d54cf51

She had not remembered then what she remembers now, a memory like something buried in river silt that finally works free and rises to the surface...

Ron Rash

43f6a0e

Something Rich and Strange She was less of what she had been, the blue rubbed from her eyes, flesh freed from the chandelier of bone. He touched what once had been a hand. The river whispered to him that it would not be long now.

Ron Rash

053d7df

What about you, Snipes?" Dunbar asked. "You think there to be mountain lions up here or is it just folks' imaginings?" Snipes pondered the question a few moments before speaking. They's many a man of science would claim there aint because you got no irredeemable evidence like panther scat or fur or tooth or tail. In other words, some part of the animal in questions. Or better yet having the actual critter itself, the whole think kit and cab..

courage faith science darkness love philosophy

Ron Rash