Quotes from Martine Leavitt

Each man, when he dies, sees the landscape of his own soul.

Papa loves you with a dying and infernal love," the youngest girl said. "Undying," the eldest girl corrected. "And eternal.

Each man, when he dies, sees the landscape of his own soul.

If untimely death came only those who deserved that fate, Keturah, where would choice be? No one would do good for its own sake, but only to avoid an early demise. No one would speak out against evil because of his own courageous soul, but only to live another day. The right to choose is man's great gift, but one thing is not his to choose--the time and means of death.

It is life that hurts you not death.

You, my lord, are the ending of all true stories.

You have no dower," he said. "Live, Keturah. Go home." "But I do have a dower," I said plainly. "This is my dower, Lord Death; the crown of flowers I will never wear at my wedding." He knelt on one knee before me. "The little house I would have had of my own, to furnish and clean. That, too, is part of my dower." "I will give you the world for your footstool," he said. "And most precious of all, I give you the wee baby I will never hold in my arms.

His [Death] voice is cold at first, John. It seems unfeeling. But if you listen without fear, you find that when he speaks, the most ordinary words become poetry. When he stands close to you, your life becomes a song, a praise. When he touches you, your smallest talents become gold; the most ordinary loves break your heart with their beauty.

There is no hell, John Temsland. Each man, when he dies, sees the landscape of his own soul.

Had I truly thought I would not die when he kissed me? But I did. For a moment the breath and life went out of me and there was no time and no tomorrow but only my lips against his.

And so he did his endless work,' I continued quietly, 'without feeling, without pity, without rest, for to open his heart to these would be to open his heart to his loneliness and longing and that was beyond bearing.

Papa loves you with a dying and infernal love," the youngest girl said. "Undying," the eldest girl corrected. "And eternal.

She knew she had never been truly alive until she met him, and never so happy and content with her lot until she was touched by the sorrow of him.

Living to an extraordinary age, she mourned them all equally as she buried her husband and, one by one, her children. In this suffering she found the best sort of perfection--the kind that never demands it of others.

The soul, it longs for its mate as mas as the body. Sad it is that the body be greedier than the soul. But if you be happy all your days, as I was with your grandfather, subdue the body and marry the soul. Look for the heart-and-soul love.

When it is winter and we must walk in the blizzard snow do not our fingers and toes whisper death And when winter is at last over. . .can we not hear our bellies whisper death to us In the dark don't we know And when we are paralyzed by nightmares We know what you are. With our first cries we rail against you. We see you in every drop of blood in every tear.

The girl knew that quarrels would come because their lives were intertwined - how passionately one defends a heart that is vulnerable.

Demonstrate talent, said Grandmother often to me, and you will still be loved by a husband when beauty has faded.

Death is the ending of all true stories.

I have observed that you treat a man as an old garment to be taken apart and stitched again. Perhaps you could think of him as good cloth, rich fabric that wants only to be embroidered upon. And perhaps, if you will do that, you will see that you love Tailor yourself.

My lord, why do you trouble me by walking with me in the dark? It is cruel." "I think to protect you from them," he said.

There was no breath in him, no flush of blood, no taint of sweat or tears. Next to him, I felt the grossness of my own body, how more I was like the earth than I was like him. He was air and wind and cloud and bird; I was dust and worm.

There are some who come willingly," I said, as if I had not heard him, "not out of love, but out of sickness and sadness and a lack of understanding. He wanted none of them. And so he waited without waiting, and dreamed of what he could not imagine, and performed his terrible work and lived only in the moments out of which eternity is spun, knowing it was hopeless.

In the fall, she knew it was Death who sweetened the apples.