Peace Like A River Quotes
"From my first breath in this world, all I wanted was a good set of lungs and the air to fill them with."
"How you yowled! Not a thing on your mind but breakfast, and that was on the way."
"My father wasn’t in the delivery room... He was praying, rounding the block for the fifth time, when the air quickened."
"Real miracles bother people... A miracle contradicts the will of earth."
"People fear miracles because they fear being changed—though ignoring them will change you also."
"No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here’s what I saw. Here’s how it went. Make of it what you will."
"We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves."
"Sometimes, there is something unworkable in one of the organs... In these cases, we must trust in the Almighty to do what is best."
"I believe I was preserved, through those twelve airless minutes, in order to be a witness."
"How many times do you let a dog bite you, before you put him down?"
"All night long in the dark and wet, a man goes riding by."
"You had only to look at his hands to see it: His hands were hard as any man's, and quick—quick as eyesight."
"The whole thing was no less a tornado than the other."
"I hauled a load of hay out late last week; she was there then."
"Those ponies kind of look after themselves this time of year."
"The moon was black as a miner’s lung, The sky was black as a shroud."
"Three nooses swayed loose in a breeze like a sigh—But who was the third who was waiting to die?"
"What do you think any good man would do, No matter what judges or laws told him to?"
"So may a good man who has spared his wife hurt Face death with the likes of poor Rennie and Burt."
"He’s just a kid, after all, with an outdated sense of frontier justice."
"A boy on a horse can’t outride the law. Not in 1962."
"Be true to your friends—though the heavens fall!"
"Practically every wanted man goes to the Badlands sometime: Butch Cassidy, Mr. Younger, Sam Bass. The Badlands are as good a place as any."
"Though I’ll defend her narrative to the last, Swede’s journalistic technique precluded the attendance of one or two facts."
"August decided the Studebaker had been more than faithful to him and needed a change of mission, also of oil."
"I admired Swede’s certainty but didn’t share it."
"It is one thing to be sick of your own infirmities and another to understand that the people you love most are sick of them also."
"It sure is one thing to say you’re at war with this whole world and stick your chest out believing it, but when the world shows up with its crushing numbers and its predatory knowledge, it is another thing completely."
"Roxanna replied not many, but once after a showing of Kitty Foyle her father turned up the lights and there sat Dalton Trumbo, right in the audience."
"But looking past her as we went by the station I saw a trooper in his parka and ranger hat, leaning against his car in the wind."
"You never like it to happen, for something as hopeful and sudden as a January thaw to come to an end, but end it does, and then you want to have some quilts around."
"It's not exactly procedure, and it doesn’t make any popular sort of sense."
"We all knew the ending, though—same as you do."
"I feared him, not knowing why, and can testify to you that this was worse."
"It isn’t faith you’re speaking of. It’s something else, foolishness or spookism."
"It went to show that anyone could deliver good news, including a person like Martin Andreeson."
"Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you."
"Tell me about Sunny"—I took a breath—"up in the secret valley."
"Reuben?" That was Swede’s frightened whisper—there in the cold dark.
"My gosh, Reuben—couldn’t you even make it upstairs?"
"You’ll rightly point out plenty of subsequent wonders."
"Without a miracle, exactly what chance do I have?"
"It’s just more trouble," I said, a great knot in my throat.
"You’re a full-blown asthmatic, has anyone told you that?"
"I remember Dad, standing in the awakening barnyard, clapping softly to keep the blood in his fingers."
"I prayed in words for a little while—for Davy, of course."
"Could you lay hold of this and dredge it from your chest and look it over in daylight—well, it’s no wonder people would rather not. Tears seem a small enough thing."
"But there’s little sleep for the adrenaline-charged."
"I’m afraid I discharged this duty quickly regarding Waltzer."