Quotes from Mary Doria Russell

Now, finally, he was in a place where none of that made any difference, where he was simply an Earthman. Only here had he come to understand that he was not a battleground—to be divided and conquered by his grandparents—but a garden, where each person who'd contributed to his existence longed to see that something of themselves had taken root and grown. For

There was a real sweetness to that man: a special sort of gentleness that you see sometimes in people who've been hurt bad but don't want revenge. [Bessie about James]

I believe in God the way I believe in quarks,' she said coolly. 'People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they've learned, I'd find quarks and God just like they did.

Three Catholic priests are having dinner: a Franciscan, a Dominican, and a Jesuit. Suddenly the lights go out. The Franciscan says, "Let us welcome Sister Darkness and wait patiently for Brother Sunlight to return." The Dominican says, "God gives us the darkness of ignorance so that we might, by contrast, discern the light of truth." The Jesuit finds a flashlight and goes downstairs to flip the breaker.

genius may have its limits but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

I'll take honest arrogance over fake humility any day.

Your Holiness, we are more than prepared to concede that overpopulation alone is not the sole cause of poverty and misery," Giuliani began. "Fatuous oligarchies," Gelasius suggested. "Ethnic paranoia. Whimsical economic systems. An enduring habit of treating women like dogs Ã¢â'¬Â¦

Not just survival but a good life, full of learning, full of love, Emilio thought, and took a step closer to the death he felt inside himself. He

compensating for utter vacuity with numerically staggering indulgence, hoping to make up in sheer repetition of experience what was missing in depth and meaning.

You know what? I really resent the idea that the only reason someone might be good or moral is because they're religious. I do what I do,' Anne said, biting off each word, 'without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require heaven or hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently, thank you very much.

Self-disclosure is almost like sex... It isn't easy to bare your soul

Cubs fan," John muttered. The Chicagoan's curse. Sandoz pushed a towel aside, eyes wide. "How bad?" "Anybody can have a couple of lousy centuries.

At the risk of descent into unscientific generalization, I must report to you that ninety percent of Texans give the other ten percent a bad name, he told Martha Anne

He had also discovered the outermost limit of faith and, in doing so, had located the exact boundary of despair.

A thousand times, they nearly killed themselves off with political bickering and moral certainty and a lethal distaste for compromise.

wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.' Ã¢â'¬Â "Then I must be very wisdom. I don't understand anything.

No children? Emilio asked them one evening, to his own surprise. Nope. Turned out, we don't breed well in captivity, George said, unembarrassed.

she wondered if men ever figured out that they were more appealing when they were pursuing their own work than when they were pursuing a woman.

Within himself, Tom Fisher smiles serenely. It's almost too easy. Promise these morons something they want. Let them believe in it. Then take it away. And tell them who's to blame.

That was when it came to him that the only unmixed happiness he could think of was when he quit his job with the city after that fight with Bob Wright. So he told Doc that, too, and said, "I never meant to be a lawman. Stumbled into it, really. When I quit, it was a weight off." Dealing

Only here had he come to understand that he was not a battleground—to be divided and conquered by his grandparents—but a garden, where each person who'd contributed to his existence longed to see that something of themselves had taken root and grown.

eternal beginner, starting over and over in a new place in new circumstances, with new languages, new people, a new commission. They had this in common: the continual rushed confrontation with change, the feeling of being hothoused, forced to bloom early, the exhausting exhilaration of doing the unreasonable not just adequately but well and with grace.

Giuliani had christened it the Giordano Bruno, after a Florentine priest burned at the stake in 1600 for suggesting that the stars were like Sol, and might be orbited by other planets where life could exist.

guess—You know how people say, Don't borrow trouble? Well," said Morgan, "I guess it's the opposite of that. Doc is borrowing happiness." The