Quotes from Dorothy Gilman

there are no happy endings, Jenny, there are only happy people.

make sense out of a world that could produce trips to the moon and silicon chips and computer robots and satellites, yet never touch the impoverished hearts that could still torture, terrorize and kill without mercy or feeling.

Carstairs looked grim. "I gave Mrs. Pollifax to Interpol like a gift and they give every evidence of having discarded her like a boring Christmas tie." Bishop said soberly, "Well, you know she doesn't look like a gift at first glance, sir. She confuses people by looking the nice cozy grandmother type.

People need dreams, there's as much nourishment in them as food.

People need dreams, there's as much nourishment in 'em as food.

remove the cold war and internal conflicts multiply in countries by the week.

and wished with all her heart that she wasn't so tired, wished that a broken wrist would radiate violent pain instead of this strange numbing ache that was exhausting her by its subtlety and consistency.

there was no safety anywhere in life, except as illusion

She thinks in a straight line," said Tsanko. "There are no detours in this woman.

Nor was this lessened by the knowledge that it was only a wall. There was nothing rational about a wall, whether it encircled Berlin, San Quentin or the ghettos of Warsaw. A wall was a symbol, fortified as much by the idea behind it as by bricks and guns.

quite the same as approving of it. She wondered, for instance, how Columbus or Magellan would react if they could see them all sitting in comfortable chairs watching a movie in the sky as they crossed the ocean insulated from wind, tides, storm and distance, and without any decent sense of awe. One ought, she felt, to suffer just a little. Not much but a little.

to remain alive inside was far more intricate and difficult and defeating.

Judge Dee mystery novels

We phungus never judge guilt or innocence, we judge evidence. The law isn't emotional, you know, it's cold and impersonal.

integral sayings of Zen Buddhism is, 'Do the best you can and then walk on.

She thought there was a curious hardness about her, as if her beauty was a deceptively rich topsoil, thinly spread over rock.… Finding that no one was looking in her direction, Mrs. Pollifax

She thought there was a curious hardness about her, as if her beauty was a deceptively rich topsoil, thinly spread over rock.… Finding that no one was looking in her direction, Mrs. Pollifax reached into her purse and surreptitiously examined her passport. Mrs. Lovecraft was absolutely right: there

He thought wryly of the current political metaphor, "the two ends are hot and the middle is cold," a very Chinese way of saying that change was passionately wanted at both the top and the bottom of the society, but sitting squarely in the middle in many areas were Mao's bureaucrats, threatened by the progressive changes, indignant, clinging in fury to the old status quo.

The people still waited with infinite patience for the democracy that had been promised them

Mrs. Pollifax measured intelligence by curiosity, rueing people who never asked questions, never asked why, or what happened next or how.

What continues to astonish me about a garden is that you can walk past it in a hurry, see something wrong, stop to set it right, and emerge an hour or two later breathless, centered, and wondering what on earth happened.

But she knew that she had encountered one of the more devastating kinds of loneliness in existence: that of being in close contact with someone to whom she was a nonperson, and who thereby rendered her invisible and of no consequence.

It struck her as extremely characterless for any human being to sit around waiting for execution. It wasn't that she had so much character, thought Mrs. Pollifax, but rather that always in her life she had found it difficult to submit. The list of her small rebellions was endless. Surely there was room for one more?

So they live in darkness but they're safe, I said, and wondered if to be this safe was to always live in darkness...