Quotes from Kathleen Norris

Peace - that was the other name for home.

You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that, and cling to it through thick and thin.

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.

If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.

When I was a child, it was a matter of pride that I could plow through a Nancy Drew story in one afternoon, and begin another in the evening. . . . I was probably trying to impress the librarians who kept me supplied with books.

True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person. Henri Nouwen has described it as receiving the stranger on his own terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who 'have found the center of their lives in their own hearts'.

Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

I wonder if children don't begin to reject both poetry and religion for similar reasons, because the way both are taught takes the life out of them.

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.

For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.

In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.

Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.

I was taught that I had to 'master' subjects. But who can 'master' beauty, or peace, or joy?

The very nature of marriage means saying yes before you know what it will cost. Though you may say the "I do" of the wedding ritual in all sincerity, it is the testing of that vow over time that makes you married.

But hope has an astonishing resilience and strength. Its very persistence in our hearts indicates that it is not a tonic for wishful thinkers but the ground on which realists stand.

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.

To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.

This is a God who is not identified with the help of a dictionary but through a relationship.

This is another day, O Lord... If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly.

The classic 'seven-year itch' may not be a case of familiarity breeding ennui and contempt, but the shock of having someone you thought you knew all too well suddenly seem a stranger. When that happens, you are compelled to either recommit or get the hell out. There are many such times in a marriage.

We shortchange ourselves by regarding religious faith as a matter of intellectual assent. This is a modern aberration; the traditional Christian view is far more holistic, regarding faith as a whole-body experience. Sometimes it is, as W.H. Auden described it, 'a matter of choosing what is difficult all one's days as if it were easy.

When you come to a place where you have to left or right,' says Sister Ruth, 'go straight ahead.

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

Not money, or success, or position or travel or love makes happiness,--service is the secret.