Quotes About Community

Main Street is as dead as ever. There's a blinding white light at the water-tower end of it and Jesus standing in the centre of it in a pale blue robe with his arms out, palms up, like he's saying how the hell would I know? I'm just a carpenter.

Cornelius, one of my students, wrote a poem called "The Washline" in which he described the sheets and garments on his mother's washline as having voices, of speaking with one another, of sending messages to other garments on other washlines.

Yoli, she said, I'm just saying that apologies aren't the bedrock of civilized society. All right! I said. I agree. But what is the bedrock of civilized society? Libraries, said Elf.

Men and women will make all decisions for the colony collectively. Women will be allowed to think. Girls will be taught to read and write. The schoolhouse must display a map of the world so that we can begin to understand our place in it. A new religion, extrapolated from the old but focused on love, will be created by the women of Molotschna.

Lonely fights are the worst, she said. She'd rather lose a lonely fight. She'd rather join a losing team than win a lonely fight.

Un moment, diu la Mariche, el que voleu dir és que els assaltants són tan víctimes com les víctimes dels assalts? Que tots nosaltres, homes i dones, som víctimes de les circumstàncies a partir de les quals es va crear Molotschna?

Greta has many times announced that she is no longer a Mennonite -- and yet was born from Mennonites and continues to live as a Mennonite, with Mennonites, in a Mennonite colony, where she speaks the Mennonite language. Those things do not make me a Mennonite, Greta argues... [I] don't know where to go.

So much of what exists in the outside world is kept out of Molotschna, but curses, like pain, always find a way in.

And when the perpetrators return, the women of Molotschna will be given the opportunity to forgive these men, thus guaranteeing everyone's place in heaven. If the women don't forgive the men, says Peters, the women will have to leave the colony for the outside world, of which they know nothing. The women have very little time. Only two days, to organise their response.

Li vaig preguntar què en traurien, ella i la resta de dones, de les actes, si cap no sabia llegir? (I ella, per la seva banda, em podia haver preguntat: Què en traiem de viure si no som al món?)

Extremist, closed communities are ripe for violence.

But what is the bedrock of civilized society? Libraries, said Elf.

Miriam Toews

S ljudima zajedno smrdi, ali je toplo. U samo?ama – prazno.

Sunday worship services are too frequently no more than a communal version of such energy-boosting, performance-enhancing, or get-well morning exercises.

Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners

Force people to live on top of one another like that," says Al Lovejoy as he describes the townships he knows intimately, "and you are bound to pick up social stress that expresses itself in violence. What I could never understand is why there wasn't more violence.

If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

Be compassionate ... and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be a better place.

People often belittle the place where they were born.

Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world.

I don't mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don't go around naked, for example. I don't run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But the big things- how we think, what we value- those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone-or any society- determine those for you. ' -Morrie Schwartz

Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.