Quotes from Mary Doria Russell

Maybe it's different in Georgia," Wyatt said. "Out here, pretty much anything in the newspaper is a cheat or a lie.

What does a man have to do to be taken at his word in this town? Do I have to shoot someone? Because I am making a list!

Honey," Bessie's mamma used to say, "politicians and judges and coppers are money-grubbing thieves. They'll screw you, and rob you, and win elections for doing it, but there's no way around them. Smile and pay the sonsabitches off." The

Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men." She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, "They've all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt.

Most men were simple. They were looking for security, or power, or a feeling of usefulness or of certainty or competence. A cause to fight for, a problem to solve, a place to fit in. There were many possibilities but once you grasped what a man was looking for, you had the beginnings of understanding.

They spoke then, with the dear and ordinary intimacy of the well-married in the eye of a storm. [369]

It is a kind of rape.

Put ordinary shitheads in impressive uniforms, give them guns and permission to use them, they'll shoot anyone who threatens their illusions

My life has a certain amusing symmetry, if viewed with sufficient detachment.

Never underestimate how soothing it is to have someone else to blame.

Mama said if you can't name two actual real people, then you're just being prejudiced. So name two peasants who hate us.

If somebody honks a horn in Cleveland, they're saying 'Hi.' It's so rare to be honked at in anger. When we have merging traffic, we just interweave. There's real courtesy.

The trouble with illusions is that you aren't aware you have any until they are taken away from you.

The characters Im most emotionally involved with are like friends you leave behind when you move away. You dont see them regularly anymore, but you still love them and keep in touch.

I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.

Like so many Boomers, I saw 'Lawrence of Arabia' in 1962 when it was first released and when we were young teenagers. I'm not quite sure why - I really wish some psychologist would explain this - but that movie had a tremendous effect on many of us.

Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between "That doesn't make sense" and "I don't understand.

When it comes down to it, I don't have much in the way of advice to offer you, but here it is: Read to children. Vote. And never buy anything from a man who's selling fear.

Cleveland is really good about recognizing its artists because of the Arts Council.

Maybe if I'd studied writing instead of anthropology, I'd be more sensible. You know - pick a genre, follow the rules, stay in the box - but let's face it. Sensible people don't major in anthropology.

I do what I do without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require Heaven or Hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently.

How can you hear your soul if everyone is talking?

The Jewish sages also tell us that God dances when His children defeat Him in argument, when they stand on their feet and use their minds. So questions like Anne's are worth asking. To ask them is a very fine kind of human behavior. If we keep demanding that God yield up His answers, perhaps some day we will understand them. And then we will be something more than clever apes, and we shall dance with God.

Rain falls on everyone, lightning strikes some. What cannot be changed is best forgotten. God made the world, and He saw that it was good. Not fair. Not happy. Not perfect. Good.