Quotes About Sacrifice

I fell off a dogsled down a frozen waterfall and landed on sharp ice on a kneecap. It was so agonizing, I thought, seriously, that my heart would stop. But I found that my whole dog team loved and worried about me so much, they curved downstream and worked back up to me to surround me as I lay clutching my lacerated knee, whimpering and pushing their warm bodies against me. I remember the love, the dog love, much more than the shattered knee. . . .

The fuel oil was too expensive so they turned the heaters down so it wasn't burning so much of their small monthly checks and they could still afford to buy and make two meat meals a week. But the cold brought them aches and pains so they came to the library where it was warm and they sat and talked and knitted scarves and mittens to give to their children who had moved away. They turned their house heaters down and lived on their memories in the library.

Mature masculinity expresses itself not in the demand to be served, but in the strength to serve and to sacrifice for the good of woman.

The role of a husband doesn't begin at the altar—it begins with the atonement . . . at the cross.

When he mentioned family, I could only think of my father, my real father, the Long Island janitor with the impenetrable accent and true-to-life smells. My mind returned away from what Joshie was saying and I pondered my father's humiliation. The humiliation of growing up a Jew in the Soviet Union, of cleaning piss-stained bathrooms in the States, of worshipping a country that would collapse as simply and inelegantly as the one he had abandoned.

How can we read when people need our help? It's a luxury. A stupid luxury.

He knows that people marked for greater things are often the least happy of all.

After he had taught himself to be friendly, everything else became harder. He had to let go of his nerdy passions. He couldn't do both at once.

The phrase "I live for my kids," for example, is tantamount to admitting that one will be dead shortly and that one's life, for all practical purposes, is already over. "I'm gradually dying for my kids" would be more accurate.

Love me and you'll see! To be good, all I ever needed was to be loved. If you loved me, I'd be gentle as a lamb and you could do whatever you pleased with me.

He laid at my feet his immense, tragic love.

I sing only for you! Tonight I gave you my soul, and I'm dead!

Erik, Erik! I saved your life! Remember? You were scentenced to death! But for me you would be dead by now.

Then I made her understand that, where she was concerned, I was only a poor dog, ready to die for her. But that she could marry the young man she pleased because she had cried with me, and mingled her tears with mine. ~ Erik

Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead.

She is wearing the ring again tonight; and you did not give it to her. She gave her soul again tonight and did not give it to you.

Up with you!... No!... No, I will go up myself, dear! Oh, very well, I will go up. Let me go! Oh, my darling, my darling!... How sweet of you!... How nice of you to save me the exertion at my age!

My dear little playfellow: You must have the courage not to see me again, not to speak of me again. If you love me just a little, do this for me, for me who will never forget you, my dear Raoul. My life depends upon it. Your life depends upon it. Your little Christine

To ward off these disasters, they spent a whole lot of time trying to keep their gods happy via a number of complex rituals, many involving copious amounts of sex ("the gods wish us to have sex" is the oldest pickup line in the world) and human sacrifice. And whoever happened to be their king was also a god, which simplified the political process quite a lot.

It's easy to become anything you wish . . . so long as you're willing to forfeit your soul.

So you know that the RIGHT kind of love ... the kind that's REAL, that SACRIFICES ... that kind of love doesn't BLIND you. It actually helps you SEE.

We leave them to others. The day came when they stood at the right hand of the dwarf, with their feet upon sand and millet at their backs, and all three stood much taller than he. And upon that day he called across the desert to their mother. Small though he was, his voice was large, and held the pain of a thousand beatings and the pain of a lover who knows that love is past.

The plain shiprock walls, and the painted statue of Lord Pas (from which the paint was peeling) will remain with me until the day I die, always somewhat colored by the wonder I felt as a small boy at seeing a black cock struggling in the old man's hands after he had cut its throat, its wings beating frantically, beating as if they might live after all, live somehow somewhere, if only they could spray the whole place with blood before they failed. My

The plain shiprock walls, and the painted statue of Lord Pas (from which the paint was peeling) will remain with me until the day I die, always somewhat colored by the wonder I felt as a small boy at seeing a black cock struggling in the old man's hands after he had cut its throat, its wings beating frantically, beating as if they might live after all, live somehow somewhere, if only they could spray the whole place with blood before they