Quotes from Ron Hansen

Craig inscribed something in the journal and Bob walked over to study the entry. "Does the name Bob Ford mean anything to you? Craig dipped his quill in the ink bottle and scripted cursively on a brown blotter. "Is that your actual name or your alias?" "Actual," said Bob, and he grinned with delight when he saw the name recorded in Craig's elegant calligraphy. "Pretty soon all of America will know who Bob Ford is.

For the man was canny, he was intuitive, he anticipated everything. He continually looked over his shoulders, he looked into the background with mirrors, he locked his sleeping room at night, he could pick out a whisper in the wind, he could register the slightest added value a man put into his words, he could probably read the faltering and perfidy in Bob's face.

And yet he thought incense was made from the bones of saints, that leather continued to grow if not dyed, that if he concentrated hard enough his body's electrical currents could stun lake frogs as he bathed.

He was a faulty judge of character, a prevaricator, a child at heart. He went everywhere unrecognized and lunched with Kansas City shopkeepers and merchants, calling himself a cattleman or commodities investor, someone rich and leisured who had the common touch.

The Americans are certainly great hero worshippers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes.

He could give me plenty of money but he's got this philosophy that his boys ought to feel some hardships or else they'll all spoil." "A man of principles;" Jesse said. "People say that about themselves when really they only want to make you unhappy.

He considered himself a Southern loyalist and guerrilla in a Civil War that never ended.

instantly felt in jeopardy, for his impudence was plain and Jesse's countenance was stern

once claimed his employer was Jesus Christ and Company. He was a swindler, insurance salesman, debt collector, a member of the Illinois bar;

Charley said, "Why don't everybody make up and be pleasant for once? Why don't we pass the evening like pleasant human beings?

As Jesse talked the sun down, the hours late, Zerelda smiled and dreamed of him as he had been and was and would be. It seemed everything about him was dynamic and masculine and romantic ; he was more vital even in his illness than any man she'd ever known.

John C. Brown] "You ought to keep the Sabbath, Bob." [Bob Ford] "You got your religion, I got my own. It isn't right to spoon it down our throats every Sunday." "It's just that me and the missus, we're Spirit-fired people, and when you think you've got the answer, well, you want to share it." "I'd just as soon as you didn't", said Bob.

Oh, he was so dashing and romantic and cast-out by the world, I couldn't help but love him. […] He was a figure out of a girl's storybook. Gentle, adoring, dangerous, strong. Surely you must have felt the same things. He has a magic about him. He steps straight into your heart.

He began: "Jesse James was a lad who killed many a man. He robbed the Glendale train. He stole from the rich and he gave to the poor, he'd a hand and a heart and a brain." The man strolled the room, coming so near Bob that Bob pulled back his crossed legs as the man sang the chorus in a higher pitch. "Oh, Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life, three children, they were brave; but that dirty little coward that shot Mister Howard has laid Jesse James in his grave.

Jesse sat low in the chair with his boots kicked out, drew off the soft red cap by its cotton ball, then reached out and snuggled Tim close to his chest. He said, "Let me tell you a secret, son: there's always a mean old wolf in Grandma's bed, and a worm inside the apple. There's always a daddy inside the Santa suit. It's a world of trickery.

A correspondent asked why, if Bob was right-handed, he'd gripped the gun with his left, and Bob answered, as if nothing further needed saying, "Jesse was left-handed.

Off in the distance there were galleons of shock-white cumulus coulds gathering in the wide sky's cerulean harbor, and their azure shadows floated over the flatlands. Billy surprised himself by saying: "I love it here. I'll never leave.

Do you know what it is you're most afraid of?" "Yes." "What?" "I'm afraid of being forgotten," Bob said, and having admitted that, wondered if it was true. He said, "I'm afraid I'll end up living a life like everyone else's and me being Bob Ford won't matter one way or the other.

We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.

You hear people mention being in love. It's like a sickness I've never had.

He also had a condition that was referred to as granulated eyelids and it caused him to blink more than usual, as if he found creation slightly more than he could accept.

They weren't penitent over what they'd attempted; their sorrow reached to the limits of their bodies and no further, all their anguish was in their skin.

but nothing upset and preoccupied him like the phrase whatever they dread most, that will happen. It seemed more than a simple curse; there was the ring of something presaging and prophetic about it, it was the sort of thing Jesse would say.

I want people to notice God's actions in their lives and in the lives of others and to have sympathy for other people. I want them to see that there is something going on here that matters