Quotes from Mary Doria Russell

A thousand times, they nearly killed themselves off with political bickering and moral certainty and a lethal distaste for compromise. A thousand times they might have become nothing but a memory in the mind of God.

Her life had been blessedly unburdened by happiness. When some period of fleeting contentment ended, Sofia Mendes did not register it as outrageous, but merely noted a return to life's normal condition. So, as the first weeks after the massacre passed, she simply counted herself lucky to be among others who did not weep and wail for the dead.

When the bet is placed, he said, a moment is carved away from the past and the future. In that enchanted moment, anything is possible. A man's debts and regrets and limitations disappear. He is buyin' the chance to imagine - for one moment at a time - that th enext card I deal will make him rich.

She taught them that every soul is a small reflection of God, and that it is wicked to murder because when a life is taken, we lose that unique revelation of God's nature.

Ah, Sofia, darlin'! On my best days, I believe in Him with all my heart. And on your worst days? she had asked that night. Even if it's only poetry, it's poetry to live by, Sofia--poetry to die for. . .

If you learn something from each person you meet and from each book you read, you will be the best-educated person in the world.

Hope—cruelest of the evils that escaped Pandora's box—smiled on him gently all that summer.

there are still times when the thief I started out to be feels more authentic to me than the priest I've been for decades. To be pulled out of a slum and educated is to be an outsider forever— He stopped talking, deeply embarrassed. Giuliani could never understand the price scholarship boys paid for their education: the inevitable alienation from your uncomprehending family, from roots, from your own first person, from the original I you once were.

Once I told Ha?anala about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. . . . I told her how Abraham bargained with God for the lives of ten righteous men who might have lived there. She said to me, ?Abraham should have taken the babies from the cities. The babies were innocent.?

I know this will sound glib, but don't pretend you aren't feeling what you feel. That's how things slide into hell. Feelings are facts," she said, her voice a little hard, as she began to walk again. "Look straight at 'em and deal with 'em. Work it through, as honestly as you can. If

Faced with the Divine, people took refuge in the banal, as though answering a cosmic multiple-choice question: If you saw a burning bush, would you (a) call 911, (b) get the hot dogs, or (c) recognize God? A vanishingly small number of people would recognize God, Anne had decided years before, and most of them had simply missed a dose of Thorazine. She

Raise your sights, sugar. Aim low all you'll hit is rats, snakes and rock bottom from Epitaph

Who am I to judge a life misspent?

Whenever we said 'they,' Mama told us to name two." Claudette divides the lump of cheese, handing half to Albert. "Mama said if you can't name two actual real people, then you're just being prejudiced. So name two peasants who hate us.

The answer was clear, though he half-expected his hand to shrivel and turn black when he voted for a Republican.

hoped for and had been given as a priest for everything he yearned for and desired as a man.

Sailing is the perfect antidote for age, Reyes. Everything you do on a sailboat is done slowly and thoughtfully. Most of the time, an old body is entirely capable of doing whatever needs to be done while you're cruising. And if the sea is determined to teach you a lesson, well, a young back is no more capable than an old one of resisting an ocean, so experience counts more than ever.

In 1913, America had a professor-president in the White House -- a man of intelligence and principle, elected to clean up the corruption that had flourished in the much of politics for so long. Public health and public schools were beating back the darkness in slums and settlements. The poor were lifted up and the proud brought down as Progressives reined in the power of Big Money.

So God just leaves?" John asked, angry where Emilio had been desolate. "Abandons creation? You're on your own, apes. Good luck!" "No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.

Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine," Vincenzo Giuliani said quietly. " 'Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.' " "But the sparrow still falls," Felipe said.

We meant well, she thought, looking up at a sky piled with cumulus clouds turning amethyst and indigo above the clearing. No one was deliberately evil. We all did the best we could. Even so, what a mess we made of everything Ã¢â'¬Â¦

Isaac didn't understand heartache. Or regret or longing or divided loyalties. Or anger or shattered trust or betrayal. Such things had no clarity. They involved expectations of another's behavior, and Isaac had no such expectations.

Certainly, nobody imagined that Mr. Lincoln would order an armed invasion over the affair. When he did exactly that, the entire South exploded with defiance and patriotism, cheering the new nation—sovereign and independent—that had just been born. In

Marc was in charge of the Wolverton tube plant colony and the tilapia tank, which would produce fresh food to supplement the packaged stuff they were bringing.