Quotes from Leif Enger

He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry. He delivered all news as though it were good. Most welcome was his prediction that language would gradually return.

She seemed to belong here, though maybe she was the sort to belong wherever she was at the time.

At bottom, what God seemed to want was affirmation. Basically praise in every circumstance. Without it he could turn menacing in a hurry.

Days later under northern skies he understood that its presence in the pickup only made him heartsick and he unloaded it cheap to the farmer, who, though confused by Spanish, understood burdens and the need to escape them.

We all dream of finding but what's wrong with looking? When the sun rises we'll know what to do.

Make of that what you will.

You know what you're getting here, I said. I'm still fairly far reduced. I may never be unabridged again. None of us are unabridged, as you are well aware.

Waltzer was stirred by the boy's assurance under stress. Waltzer believed in invented destiny and invented some then and there.

It was wonderful and gauzy, going to sleep that way, like drifting in a small boat over a rippling sea.

It made me think of Penelope waiting for Odysseus—Penelope at her loom, not missing a trick, lumpen suitors everywhere.

I'd long thought of her as an unfading Penelope, but that was the lazy eye of infatuation. In truth she'd aged more than the decade elapsed since Alec disappeared. Yet somehow the years revealed her strength. Like a willow she turned all weathers to advantage.

He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry. He delivered all news as though it were good.

Is there a single person on whom I can press belief? No sir. All I can do is say, Here's how it went. Here's what I saw. I've been there and am going back.

and one of those interpretive historical markers your aunt reads aloud while nobody listens

But these activities—whining about what's fair, begging forgiveness, hoping for a miracle—these demand energy, and that was gone from me. Contentment on the other hand demands little, and I drew more and more into its circle.

He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry.

Greenstone is cursed. We had mines, but they shut. Ships used to dock, now they sail past. Our water tower comes loose and rolls over people, our congressman gets leprosy, Bob Dylan drives through and gets two flat tires." Ann glowed as the idea coalesced—she couldn't have been more incandescent if she'd physically caught fire. "Hard luck! That's our legacy.

one of her recent letters asks, Is it hubris to believe we all live epics? (Perhaps it is, but I suspect she's not actually counting on me for an answer.)

I knew he used to call the old man Saturday mornings to talk baseball or politics, trying to keep him from sinking into the marsh of incurious disapproval that swallows so many ancients.

Of course vindictiveness is an ugly trait and, yes, I do mean to forgive all these nice deserters; I mean, eventually, to say, to their ghosts if not their living faces, It's all right. I understand. I might've done the same. Not yet, though. Let me bear witness first. Two

My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed—though ignoring them will change you also.

No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will.

I'd lived years without a woman to tell me small things. Her work went well and she wanted to say so, and I was the man who was listening. That fact swung open and light came in.

The drink was a storm cloud with coffee thundering around inside it.