Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good Quotes
"It’s an important occasion, Timothy. Your doctor is retiring after decades of sleep loss and patients who won’t do what the doctor ordered."
"Then he’s volunteering to serve in one of the worst areas of famine in the world."
"‘I just read an article,’ she said, ‘on what can happen to priests when they retire. Some of them end up refusing to leave the house.’"
"‘I have left the house religiously,’ he said with feeling."
"‘To withdraw someplace,’ read a sixteenth-century definition of retirement, ‘for the sake of seclusion.’"
"‘What do you think, buddy?’ Barnabas gazed at him, solemn—morning light picked out flecks of amber in the dark pupils."
"No one had warned him that something quite other would follow. On the heels of indifference came their anger and resentment."
"The sheer insult of his retirement raced along Main Street like a brush fire—oh, yes, he remembered."
"If not for her, he would eat the entire pint at one sitting. But she would seize it at the halfway point, preach him a homily, and stick it in the freezer behind lamb chops wrapped in butcher’s paper."
"All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art. JL Borges"
"She pressed her forehead against the cool pane of the window. She was waiting to grow out of the terrible fear of too much happiness, or too much sorrow."
"He supposed he would do as he had always done—he would perform whatever duty his calendar dictated, and he would try to like it."
"‘Don’t do the frogs,’ he said. ‘Go and be as the butterfly.’"
"He would never say a word, but I don’t know about Officer Greene, th’ ol’ so-an’-so. He might tell Ruby, an’ then, you know, party time."
"‘I see you,’ she said, chuckling a little. ‘I see you on yo’ stool. Where you been so long?’"
"I’d hate bein’ closed up in that little thingamajig. Where would you sprinkle me?"
"‘Thank you, thank you, thank you’, again and again."
"‘I brought you flowers last Tuesday for our anniversary,’ he said, ‘but I’m due for another round.’"
"‘Let’s write love letters again,’ she said. ‘Like we did when I was stuck in Manhattan all those months and we were trying to figure out what we meant to each other.’"
"O Lord, I call to you, come quickly to me, Hear my voice when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice . . ."
"It is cause to believe that one day, all will be well with the world."
"You are a better man than I if you get anything useful from them."
"It mattered because the fact of Henry’s existence revealed their father’s duplicity, which was a slap in the face of his mother."
"Clearly, God had given him this particular brother, and his cowardice to fully accept that was shaming."
"Why hadn’t she resisted such extravagance? She hadn’t resisted because she was too exhausted to resist."
"Rest, lose forty pounds, walk to the mailbox every day, think positive, breathe deep, eat right, and be regular—just the thought made her want to lie down."
"People always said Esther Cunningham was a tough cookie, but no, on too many issues she had been as soft as the inside of a cathead biscuit."
"Every imaginable love and consolation had been and was currently being delivered to him, and yet he had no wit or gumption to receive it."
"Sometimes it is a Baptist that brings our plates from th’ All-Church, and sometimes it is th’ Methodists, an’ one time it was th’ Presbyterians, but most of th’ time it’s Father Tim who used to preach down at Lord’s Chapel."
"He liked rain and snow and weather of all kinds except high wind."
"I LOVE THEE WITH the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life."
"How she occasionally raved on, his heedless, imaginative wife, and how he loved her with everything in him."
"Clergy were known to do worse than go weak in the knees."
"Truth be told, he was more concerned about tonight’s pool lesson and how much a fool he’d make of himself."
"For his money, the yeasty fragrance diffused by clean mountain air was the best thing about Mitford."
"As a child with parents who scarcely knew me, I remember distinctly what I yearned for—to be somewhere safe with somebody good."
"By His grace, I am safe at last. But to be safe with you is grace beyond measure."
"We are as prone to love as the sun is to shine."
"‘You look happy as a chigger,’ said Winnie, delivering his coffee in a real mug instead of Styrofoam."
"He remembered their talk while sitting on Henry’s garden bench in the frying heat of a Holly Springs morning. They had connected on a level too profound to plumb straight off, but which, with time, might be plumbed for the rest of their lives."
"Don’t worry about me, she would say, and never worry what others may think. I worried too much about what others thought—I can tell you it’s a tragic waste of time and energy and pokes God in the eye."
"He dodged Shirlene’s sandwich board and buzzed three times at the bakery’s side entrance—he being one of the few customers allowed entry before the front doors opened at eight."
"Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy; let your holy angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace; and let your blessing be upon us always; through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen."
"‘Pray for me,’ he said. ‘It’s certainly nothin’ Father Talbot ever troubled himself to do. Set your bag down right there and go for it.’"
"Counseling, a special school... These were easy answers, but they didn’t seem right and he didn’t know why."
"He felt responsible for whatever had gone awry."
"The rules Dooley had laid down for his brother were tough but good."
"He knew what it had taken for Dooley to call him Dad, to give the word life in their relationship."
"It is so easy, you won’t believe it. You just do like this…"
"If he ever said what’s on his mind, he’d be speechless."
"You know what I’m lookin’ for? Somebody to play Scrabble with—you know what I mean, Father?"
"‘I cannot find th’ gift cards,’ said Fancy. ‘I’ll have to hand-write th’ dern thing.’"
"I’d love a week at Whitecap. But not right now, sweetheart."
"Retirement in all its forms, wrinkle cream that makes nothing disappear but misguided hope, and, of course, age spots."
"These aren’t age spots, Kav’na. They’re freckles."
"For the first time since coming home, he had the contentment of feeling rooted into Mitford like a turnip."
"‘Solemn,’ he said. ‘That would be our father.’"
"To see the useless made useful, the scattered made whole."
"My body is making a terrible trap for the baby. Please don’t tell anyone."
"‘I’ll give you a day a week,’ he said. He could hardly bear seeing her like this."
"But if you decide to do it, Timothy, I’ll do it with you. All the way."
"He hadn’t known he wanted all that until just now, this moment."
"I would hate sharing you again with so many people."
"To operate otherwise cut the parson out of a very big piece of the pie."
"The pressure of the open-ended timetable was too much; he had to have a cutoff date."
"But how could he think about stuffing a full day’s commitment at the bookstore into Thursday’s need for an urgent decision?"
"Friday was open, a total blank; he could call the bishop on Friday."
"‘They say that every year.’ He was now old folks, himself, and as far as he was concerned, the winter could do whatever it pleased."
"‘Boondoggling beats sitting around trying to figure out what God is up to."
"He was pretty good at softball and handy with a hammer and paintbrush, which should be enough for anybody."
"‘How would I notice that?’ ‘When you’re goin’ uphill,’ said Jeb as if speaking to someone from a foreign country."
"‘Puny’s coming in today instead of tomorrow,’ she said, ‘and bringing the boys.’"
"‘Do you know how to do that?’ ‘I’ve never done it,’ she said."
"‘It’s gon’ cost more to fix than it’s worth.’ Jeb named a price, but given the hum, it was muffled and indistinct."
"‘I HAVE GOOD NEWS!’ Puny announced as he came downstairs."
"Joe Joe’s our new police chief, he’ll be officially installed th’ first week of November."
"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. Emilie Buchwald"
"We read to know we are not alone. CS Lewis"
"Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book. Thos à Kempis"
"wear the old coat and buy the new book {Austin Phelps"
"‘Lord,’ he prayed, ‘make me a blessing to someone today.’"
"My name is Hastings. I would like to buy a book, please."
"There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing poetry." - Emily Dickinson
"Taking care of yourself is all the thanks I need."
"My dog enjoys coming in. Must get down to the bank now."
"Life with Sammy had been hairy at Meadowgate, but they’d worked at it and Sammy had settled down."
"It’s like you’re trying to pull something over on him."
"With God’s help, I want to be something like grace to him."
"It's what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it." - Oscar Wilde
"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading." - Logan Pearsall Smith
"Cornflower blue! The color of a volcanic lake!"
"Who said art isn’t manual labor, right up there with digging ditches?"
"Nothing can separate us from your love, O Lord."
"For you, Lord, have not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
"There is no balm in Gilead, Ms. Bentley, did you know that?"
"She gave us more than we can acknowledge, but here is what she gave most freely: Herself."
"Borrowed grans who love books—an apt definition of felicity."
"‘In everything, give thanks.’ That was the lifeboat in any crisis."
"For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
"‘It’ll break your heart,’ said Omer. ‘What I do don’t help much, but it keeps me out of trouble.’"