Quotes from Deborah Heiligman

God Only Knows the Issue.

I wish you knew how I value you; and what an inexpressible blessing it is to have one whom one can always trust, one always the same, always ready to give comfort, sympathy and the best advice. God bless you, my dear, you are too good for me.' -Charles to Emma, 1859

You must remember that you are my prime treasure (and always have been).' Emma Darwin to husband Charles

D)ying is hard, but living is harder still. —Vincent van Gogh

I keep on making what I can't do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.

What a mystery life is, and love is a mystery within a mystery. -Vincent Van Gogh

How much there is in art that is beautiful, if only one can remember what one has seen, one is never empty or truly lonely, and never alone. -Vincent Van Gogh

Who a person becomes later in life, how he lives, how he dies, cloud's people's memories of him, spinning and skewing-distorting-their portraits of him as a child. But we will draw Vincent as clearly as we can using not only impressions but also strong lines, sharp details. A picture will emerge.

My heart has often been too full to speak.' -Emma to husband Charles on her gratitude for 'the cheerful and affectionate looks you have given me when I know you have been miserably uncomfortable.

We must be more and more to each other, my dear wife.' -Charles Darwin to wife Emma upon loss of daughter Annie

It is feeling and not reasoning that drives one to prayer.' -Emma to Charles

Success is sometimes the outcome of a whole string of failures,

I have ceased to think even of barnacles!' -Charles Darwin

But precisely because love is so strong, we are, especially in our youth...usually not strong enough to maintain a straight course. —Vincent van Gogh

Uncle Cor once had asked Vincent if he would feel anything for a woman or a girl who was beautiful, 'but I said I would have more feeling for and would prefer to be involved with one who was ugly or old or impoverished or in some way unhappy, who has acquired understanding and a soul through experience of life and trial and error, or sorrow.' -Vincent Van Gogh

More than any woman I ever knew, she comforted.' -Mrs. Huxley about Emma

We shall me much less miserable together.' -Emma Darwin to husband Charles upon grief for loss of daughter Annie

He doesn't talk about his past, or his future. He passionately wants to make something of his life, to make an offering to the world. And to his family. He doesn't want to make letterheads! How can he be true to himself and keep the bond with his family?

But sometimes a person who seems easy is one whose calm outside belies a troubled and turbulent inside.

O Lord, join us intimately to one another and let our love for Thee make that bond ever stronger.

A riveting mosaic of exciting true stories… I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN!

The years between 20 and 30 are full of all sorts of dangers, full of great danger, yea, the danger of sin and death. —Vincent to Theo, early September

As summer turns to fall, Vincent, at twenty-six, is alone.

After all, we're in the midst of life—well then, we must fight a good fight—and we must become men. —Vincent to Theo, May 31, 1877