Quotes from Haven Kimmel

God is helpless. We are at the mercy of our own radical freedom, and all God can do is take into God's self the grief, the violence, the sublime acts of kindness, the good sex. God comes to us from the future, and has only one godlike gift: the lure. We are lured toward truth, beauty, and goodness . . . the lure is pulling at our hearts like some lucid joy inside every actual occasion and all we have to do is . . . Say yes.

Honey, I know you like to take a drink, and that's all right, but be forewarned that I ain't your maid and I ain't your punching-bag, and if you ever raise your hand to me you'd best kill me. Because otherwise I'll wait till you're asleep; sew you into the bed; and beat you to death with a frying pan." Until

There is a kind of wildness that grows up among people who have gathered in the dark, and we all felt a little giddy.

Strangely, there has never been a definitive source of information about Mooreland during a certain fifteen-year period, perhaps because there are so few people left who can reliably tell it.

Those are her memories but she has lent them to me.

Regardless of the fact that he was beautiful, and should have had every advantage because of it, the world was not right for my brother. There was some standard by which he measured everyone, all human activity, without articulating it or giving us any clue where we were going wrong. He was silent and furious nearly all the time. Girls were crazy about him.

I'm never reading poetry again unless it's by James Whitcomb Riley!" And I went storming out of the house to try and shake off the injury done to me with words.

had unconsciously crossed part of the yard, and was now standing under the lower branches of the mulberry tree, still at an age where anything I couldn't see couldn't see me.

The job of parents, as I saw it, was to watch television and step into a child's life only when absolutely necessary, like in the event of a tornado or a potential kidnapping.

the church had approximately eleven members, with a collective age of nearly a thousand years.

I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.

Mother always said she was a size 7 woman she kept wrapped in fat to prevent bruising.

Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?

What kind of good deeds? Like Girl Scouts? Because I got kicked out of Brownies and they won't give me another chance to keep my clothes on at camp.

But I think that what you'll discover more and more as you get older is that most people aren't thinking about you at all.

Ordinarily my mom just sunk deeper into her corner of the couch and ignored it. She had succesfully ignored a quarter of a century of entropy and decay, had sat peacefully crunching popcorn and drinking soda while the house fell down around us. If I had to guess the number of books she read during that time, I would place the number at somewhere in the neighborhood of forty thousand.

On Jesus: "Everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn't be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn't afraid of blind people.

They did a lot of cleaning in their house, which I considered to be a sign of immoral parenting. The job of parents, as I saw it, was to watch television and step into a child's life only when absolutely necessary, like in the event of a tornado or a potential kidnapping.

I respect every way in which you are a troublemaker, now get up and do what your mother says.

Decoupage hit Mooreland pretty hard...

I honestly believe that people who never have children or never love a child are doomed to a sort of foolishness because it cant be described or explained, that love. I didnt know anything before I had him, and I havent learned anything since I lost him. Everything that isnt loving a child is just for show.

I am hyper vigilant and would be dangerous if threatened.... If someone broke into my house or attacked me in the street, it's THEM I would fear for.... But as Yo La Tengo recently put it so succinctly: I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass.

My hair looks like it had been purchased at a rummage sale after all the real hair was gone.

My mother was good at reading books, making cinnamon biscuits, and coloring in a coloring book. Also she was a good eater of popcorn and knitter of sweaters with my initials right in them. She could sit really still. She knew how to believe in God and sing really loudly. When she sneezed our whole house rocked. My father was a great smoker and driver of vehicles..He could hold a full coffee cup while driving and never spill a drop, even going over bumps. He lost his temper faster than anyone.