Quotes from Mary Doria Russell

There's an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.

He wondered then if Jesus expected gratitude as Lazarus emerged, stinking, from the crypt. Maybe Lazarus was a disappointment to everyone, too.

mathematics of eternity

What he experienced was not so much the beginning of love as a cessation of pain.

He had also discovered the outermost limit of faith and, in doing so, had located the exact boundary of despair. It was at that moment that he learned, truly, to fear God.

Hunting isn't kosher," she told them. No one had heard of this before. She waved off her initial objection. "I don't keep kosher, as you know," she told them, a little embarrassed. "I still found it impossible to eat pork or shellfish, and I've never eaten game. But if you can kill the animal cleanly, I suppose it doesn't matter.

On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, the Earps were incorruptible, intrepid lawmen bravely marching off to protect the city from gun-toting outlaws. The next morning, they were cold-blooded killers who'd murdered three men on a public street because of some kind of personal feud between Doc Holliday and Ike Clanton.

faith in technology was more by practical default than informed conviction

To Robert, he wrote, In Texas, rocks are considered inadequate weaponry during school yard scuffles. Dallas children carry a brace of loaded pistols, a concealed Deringer, and a six-inch toadsticker in one boot. That's the girls, of course. Boys bring howitzers to class.

I understand these concerns, Major. I must, however, point out that

Do you know what made me fall in love with you? George asked suddenly. Anne shook her head, puzzled that he should ask her this now. I heard you laugh, down the hall, just before I got to Spanish class that first day. I couldn't see you. I just heard this fabulous laugh, like a whole octave, top to bottom. And I had to hear it again.

They don't take enough to kill their host, Supaari thought, sorry to have lived through the night, and disgusted by the jointed carapaces, the scuttling gait of the bloated little beasts. They suck blood and give back nothing. That is the way of parasites.

So much of what he knew about religion struck him as total bullshit; he was disarmed when the fathers freely admitted that some stories were in fact pious fictions. But, judging his character, they dared him to cut through what he called the crap: to find the core of truth, carefully preserved and offered

On Earth, her son would have been a tragedy, but here in the forest, protected by the watchful gaze of a hundred fathers, all the children were safe, damaged or whole, quick or halt. No one was discarded as too broken or too odd. Imperfection was permitted in Trucha Sai, the only place on Rakhat where this was so. The Runa asked nothing of Isaac. They did not judge him and find him wanting.

As far as Wyatt Earp knew, it was not illegal to beat a horse. In the past few years, he'd worked as a part-time policeman in a string of Kansas cow towns. Each time he was sworn in, he made an effort to study the ordinances he was supposed to enforce, but he wasn't much of a reader. In Ellsworth, he asked a lawyer for some help. "Wyatt," the man told him, "the entire criminal code of the State of Kansas boils down to four words. Don't kill the customers.

No fault is ever found within, Supaari thought, listening to them. None among us is dull or inept or shiftless. We are all powerful and triumphant, but for the ones above us.

Sofia knocked. Anne Edwards, white hair pulled into a messy bun, flour up to her elbows, answered the door. "Oh, no!" she cried. "Not just brilliant but good bones as well. I do hope you have a terrible personality, dear," Anne Edwards declared. "Otherwise, I shall lose faith in a just God.

Engineers don't go to confession when they screw up; they find a fix.

Once an air squadron commander, he knew there were many things one could not control when engaged in battle, and that knowledge dictated an iron-willed insistence that what could be controlled must be brought to perfection.

an insouciant flip of the wrist—

Spoke again,and this time he understood, Someone's father once her that it was better to die than to live wrongly. I say: better to live rightly

And Johannes Voelker is the last man on Earth I'd choose as a spiritual director for Sandoz, he thought. Shit or get off the pot, my son.

Would you object to a civil ceremony?" "That would certainly be nicer than shouting abuse at one another," Gina replied, straight-faced

We are none of us born into Eden, Doc said reasonably. World's plenty evil when we get here. Question is, what's the best way to play a bad hand?