Quotes from Mary Doria Russell

God will break your heart.

Abandon a dachshund and upon your return, you may well be confronted with a small token of her displeasure. This, for the dachshund, is an undignified but necessary form of training. Eventually, you will learn your lesson, which is to take you with her everywhere. When you have finally accepted this, you will be generously rewarded for your good behavior by a jaunty, joyful companion.

I ain't movin' to Arizona! Dammit, there is nothin' there but gravel and scorpions.

Bein' born is craps, he decided. He glanced at Morg and let loose that sly, lopsided smile of his. How we live is poker.

Dust rises at every step, fine as flour. It is dried river silt, that dust. Add water, and the soil is so fertile that you could plant a pencil and harvest a book.

On December 7, 2059, Emilio Sandoz was released from the isolation ward of Salvator Mundi Hospital in the middle of the night and transported in a bread van to the Jesuit residence at Number 5 Borgo Santo Spirito, a few minutes' walk across St. Peter's Square from the Vatican.

Later that summer, as rain fell, such a moment shimmered and paused on the brink, and then began the ancient dance of numbers: two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and a new life took root and began to grow. And thus the generations past were joined to the unknowable future.

Cynicism and foul language are the only vices I'm presently capable of. Everything else takes energy or money. (64)

IF YOU WANT A STORYBOOK ENDING, stop—now—and remember them in that tender moment. Be content to know that they embarked on a series of adventures throughout the West and that they stayed together through thick and thin for forty-five years. But know this as well: If their story ended here, no one would remember them at all. Where a tale begins and where it ends matters. Who tells the story, and why . . . That makes all the difference.

God's got a lot of explaining to do. Of course, God never explains. When life breaks your heart, you're just supposed to pick up the pieces and start all over, I guess.

In Texas, rocks are considered an adequate weaponry during schoolyard scuffles. Dallas children carry a brace of loaded pistols, a concealed Derringer, and a 6 inch Toadsticker in one boot. That's the girls of course. Boys bring howitzers to class.

Flaubert tells us that three things are required for happiness: stupidity, selfishness, and good health. I am, he told Morgan, an unhappy man -

It is a scholar's task to find patterns in nature or cycles in history. Initially, it's no different from finding portraits of animals and heroes in the stars. The question is, Have you discovered a preexisting truth? Or have you imposed an arbitrary meaning on whatever it is you're considering?

trust in God could impose an additional burden on good people slammed to their knees by some senseless tragedy. An atheist might be no less staggered by such an event, but nonbelievers often experienced a kind of calm acceptance: shit happens, and this particular shit happened to them. It could be more difficult for a person of faith to get to his feet precisely because he had to reconcile God's love and care with the stupid, brutal fact that something irreversibly terrible had happened.

and yet, in the end, did Klara Hitler's sickly son ever fire a gun? One hollow, hateful little an. One last awful thought: all the harm he ever did was done for him by others.

He ain't big and he ain't strong, but that boy's got a by-God streak of fight in him. And he was going to need it.

The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances, is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God.

What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren't human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever.

Add water, and the soil is so fertile that you could plant a pencil and harvest a book.

Distressing to be hated because of lies, isn't it. (Mirella) Especially when there are so many legitimate reasons to be hated. (Schramm)

My experience is that many things are not as bad as I thought they would be.

For five weeks, the Associated Press had provided the world with lurid coverage of the attack on Virgil Earp, which was labeled Cow Boy revenge for what was being called "the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" because it took too long to set the type for "Gunfight in the Vacant Lot behind Camillus Fly's Photography Studio Near Fremont Street.

You ever hear that old joke about the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building? D.W. asked her. Yeah. All the way down, you could hear him say, 'So far, so good. So far, so good. So far, so good.' That is George's life story in a nutshell.

To leave the apple unpicked—that was sin.