Quotes from Charles Martin

But good hymns? They live past the people who wrote them. Hymns never die.

But remember, diamonds are only brilliant when they reflect.

Memories surfaced and flashed before my mind's eye—the hospital, tear stained nights, never-ending days, loneliness so deep I thought I would drown—and maybe sometimes I wanted to. I flung open the doors of my mind, dug them out of their holes where I'd hidden them from Maggie, and pretty soon ten pads turned into twenty, and all the beauty and wonder—and yes, even ugliness—of my life stared back at me. The mirror told no lies.

She blazed, burned herself out, and then disappeared into the silent deep, sounding the echoes of remembrance throughout a hollow and shattered heart.

And while she sounded lonesome, I doubted whether a whip-poor-will ever sounded that hauntingly pure.

That was the night I learned the value of an old hymn. How something so old and "out-of-date" could say words my heart needed to hear and didn't know how to say.

drove us the long way to Apalachicola

I stood knee-deep as the waves crashed into my legs. I'll never forget the power. It took my breath away. Unc did that too. And then he gave it back.

The point is that hell is separate from love. If Lucifer knows anything, he knows that. And ever since Emma left, I'd known the same thing. It's a lonely, desolate place.

diamonds are only brilliant when they reflect.

shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth, I knew not where; for so swiftly it flew, the sight could not follow in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, it fell to earth I knew not where; for who has sight so keen and strong, that it can follow the flight of a song? Long, long afterward, in an oak, I found the arrow still unbroke, and the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.

Love has its own communication—one you can't prove in a courtroom, in a lab experiment, or on a doctor's chart. It's the language of the heart, and while it has never been transcribed, has no alphabet, and can't be heard or spoken by voice, it is used by every human on the planet. It is written on our souls, scripted by the finger of God, and we can hear, understand, and speak it with perfection long before we open our eyes for the first time.

It's the bad that lets you know how good the good really is.

My life has been real different than I thought. Ain't turned out how I hoped . . . nor dreamt. But I'm not the only man in the world to get screwed by life. Lots are worse off than me. That's life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It's the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't no good. There is, and lots of it, too." "You

not. And before you start

Melanzana, a small, privately owned company that makes the world's best fleece jackets and sweaters right out of its shop on Main Street. The "Mellie" is standard-issue among serious Coloradans. You see one and chances are you're dealing with a native. Or a wannabe.

What you got comes from some place none of the rest of us know nothing about. That makes you special.

the magnetic hope that bubbled forth from each, a hope that no power in hell or on earth could ever extinguish.

I will not let the fear of what might be rob me of the promise of what can.

You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

Music is meant to be experienced, not described.

That's life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It's the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't no good. There is, and lots of it, too." "You

Sometimes I think that hell is two places: it's a place you end up, but it's also a place that you live before you get there.

Whose you are matters more to the soul than who you are or what you are.