Quotes from Marilynne Robinson

So much had never been explained to her. They were that kind of family. Things necessary to know were passed along brother to brother, sister to sister, and this sufficient for most purposes, despite inevitable error and sensational.

I am trying to describe what I have never before attempted to put into words. I have made myself a little weary in the struggle. It was one day as I listened to baseball that it occurred to me how the moon actually moves, in a spiral, because while it orbits the earth it also follows the orbit of the earth around the sun. This is obvious, but the realization pleased me. There was a full moon outside my window, icy white in a blue sky, and the Cubs were playing Cincinnati.

He suspected he drank to give himself a way of accounting for the vast difference between any present situation and the intentions that brought him to it.

Of course misfortunes have opened the way to blessings you would never have thought to hope for, that you would not have been ready to understand as blessings if they had come to you in your youth, when you were uninjured, innocent.

It was probably best just to be quiet and wait until the conversation changed, as conversations will when no one is saying anything.

Sinners are not all dishonorable people, not by any means. But those who are dishonorable never really repent and never really reform. Now, I may be wrong here. No such distinction occurs in Scripture. And repentance and reformation are matters of the soul which only the Lord can judge. But, in my experience, dishonor is recalcitrant.

I can imagine him beyond the world, looking back at me with an amazement of realization—This is why we have lived this life! There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.

A shabby fellow with a furtive air can be as gallant as the next man, depending on circumstances.

She knew there were words so terrible you heard them with your whole body. Guilty. And there were voices to say them. She knew there were people you might almost trust who would hear them, too, and be amazed, and still not really hear them because they know they were not the ones the words were spoken to.

Tutta questa cittadina somiglia davvero alla speranza, quando ha cominciato a logorarsi un po', e poi si logora un altro po'. Ma una speranza rinviata resta sempre una speranza.

Well, you know, that's good of you to say, but it's not always wise to make promises. There can be a lot more involved in keeping them than it seems at the time.

A metaphysics is a great help in rationalizing scruple-driven behavior.

My father said, "I would never have thought this place could be beautiful. I'm glad to know that.

When people have wearied of life in Gilead, when they want another life altogether, they mention Chicago.

Glory had rehearsed angry outbursts in anticipation of his arrival. She began to hope he would come so she could tell him exactly what she thought.

The sun was brightly mild. There was the crisp sound of maple leaves just ripe enough to fall, and leather oak leaves that would cling until a wind took them, and the smell from the fields of all the life that had burned through all those crops until it spent itself down like a fire. It was almost the smell of smoke.

La infancia no dura para siempre. Algún día lo lamentarás. Pronto serás tan alta como yo.

I just lay there, helplessly subject to my anxieties. A good many of them I could have put out of my mind, if I'd had the use of my mind. But as it was, I had to endure a kind of dull paralysis.

All that purpose. Always on their way somewhere. You had to admire. Maybe a chirp meant "I exist!" and then "I exist!," as if it could matter.

Una punta di rabbia di troppo, troppo spesso o al momento sbagliato, può distruggere più di quanto potresti mai immaginare. Soprattutto, bada a quello che dici. Vedete un piccolo fuoco quale grande foresta può incendiare! Anche la lingua è un fuoco: ecco la verità.

Beauty is a conversation between humankind and reality. . . .

Let me say first of all that the grace of God is sufficient to any transgression, and that to judge is wrong, the origin and essence of much error and cruelty.

My father was right. He told me once, The creatures want their lives. Every one of them. When this creature has an empty belly, he finds something to put in it. So, no need to worry.

Keeping his distance was a favor, a courtesy, to all those strangers who might, probably would, emerge somehow poorer for proximity to him.