Gilead Quotes
"Grace is not so poor a thing that it cannot present itself in any number of ways."
"To see this aspect of life is a privilege of the ministry which is seldom mentioned."
"Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined."
"I’m about to put on imperishability. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye."
"Your hair is straight and dark, and your skin is very fair. I suppose you’re not prettier than most children. You’re just a nice-looking boy, a bit slight, well scrubbed and well mannered."
"I have made myself a little weary in the struggle."
"This habit of writing is so deep in me, as you will know well enough if this endless letter is in your hands."
"I could see that my father was a little shaken. He had to stop and wipe his eyes."
"The sensation is of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time."
"I’ve always envied men who could watch their wives grow old."
"I have felt as though a great part of life was closed to me."
"Your mother says I was like Abraham. But I had no old wife and no promise of a child."
"Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing."
"That was the first time in my life I ever knew what it was to love another human being."
"I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly."
"It is all still new to me. I have lived my life on the prairie and a line of oak trees can still astonish me."
"I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again."
"I could wish you such a moment as that one was, though when I think of everything that came before it, for me and for your dear mother, too, I’m not sure I should."
"I could have married again while I was still young... In retrospect, I’m very grateful for whatever reluctance it was that kept me alone until your mother came."
"Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day."
"The grace of God is sufficient to any transgression, and that to judge is wrong, the origin and essence of much error and cruelty."
"Sinners are not all dishonorable people, not by any means. But those who are dishonorable never really repent and never really reform."
"How you would honor someone differs with circumstances, so you can only truly fulfill a general obligation to show honor in specific cases of mutual intimacy and understanding."
"Every human being is worthy of honor, but the conscious discipline of honor is learned from this setting apart of the mother and father."
"It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing."
"I believe it will put my mind at ease to tell you straightforwardly what is at issue here. Sleep has become a great problem, elusive, and then pretty grueling when it comes."
"I believe the grace of God is sufficient to any transgression, and that to judge is wrong, the origin and essence of much error and cruelty."
"But those who are dishonorable never really repent and never really reform."
"Every day is holy, but the Sabbath is set apart so that the holiness of time can be experienced."
"Existence is the essential thing and the holy thing."
"Love is holy because it is like grace—the worthiness of its object is never really what matters."
"We fly forgotten as a dream, certainly, leaving the forgetful world behind us to trample and mar and misplace everything we have ever cared for."
"We participate in Being without remainder. No breath, no thought, no wart or whisker, is not as sunk in Being as it could be."
"Age is strange, though. Yesterday you stood by my chair and toyed with my eyebrow, pulling the hairs out to their full length and watching them curl back again. You thought it was funny, and it is."
"Existence is not a predicate that expresses a fact or a property of something. Instead, it is the mode of being of those entities that have being."
"The planets may all have been sloughed from the same star, but still the historical dimension is missing from that simile."
"Theology can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things."
"It is a good thing to know what it is to be poor, and a better thing if you can do it in company."
"I have prayed considerably, and I have slept awhile, too, and I feel I am reaching some clarity."
"It is probably truer to say I am in a state of categorical unbelief. I don’t even believe God doesn’t exist, if you see what I mean."
"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul."
"If we could find a way to live, I think she would marry me."
"I swear I had no intentions at all, honorable or otherwise. It was just pleasant to see her face."
"She had a good life. And I am not a gentleman."
"The influence of my wife worked a change in me for the better, at least temporarily."
"Children's children are the crown of old men."
"The Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee."
"There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient."
"The Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance."
"Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration."
"There must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave."