Marilynne Robinson Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Giving, Nonsense, Distraction

  14 Copy quote

• Any human face is a claim on you, because you can't help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it. But this is truest of the face of an infant. I consider that to be one kind of vision, as mystical as any.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Loneliness, Vision, Faces

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Gilead: A Novel”, p.66, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• ... but it's your existence I love you for, mainly. Existence seems to me now the most remarkable thing that could ever be imagined.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Love You, Existence, Remarkable

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Gilead: A Novel”, p.53, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• For our purposes as human beings, the mind is the center of everything.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Mind, Purpose, Humans

  "Religion, Science and the Ultimate Nature of Reality" by Marilynne Robinson, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 15, 2010.

  8 Copy quote

• It all means more than I can tell you. So you must not judge what I know by what I find words for.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Mean, Judging, Knows

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Gilead: A Novel”, p.114, Macmillan

  14 Copy quote

• Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Memories, Loss

  10 Copy quote

• There's so much to be grateful for, words are poor things.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Faith, Grateful, Be Grateful

  Marilynne Robinson (2009). “Home”, p.16, Hachette UK

  12 Copy quote

• Nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Defense, Posture, Said

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Gilead: A Novel”, p.177, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Reflection, Thinking, Errors

  7 Copy quote

• The locus of the human mystery is perception of this world. From it proceeds every thought, every art.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Art, Perception, World

  Marilynne Robinson (2012). “When I Was A Child I Read Books”, p.12, Hachette UK

  6 Copy quote

• I owe everything that I have done to the fact that I am very much at ease being alone.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Personality

  14 Copy quote

• Never, ever condescend to the reader. Assume you are writing for someone better and smarter than you are. This will protect you from conventionalism, faddishness, and cliché.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Writing, Assuming, Protect You

  "Marilynne Robinson: A Good Inheritance". Interview with Michele Filgate, www.barnesandnoble.com. October 21, 2014.

  6 Copy quote

• I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. 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. A moment is such a slight thing. I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Beautiful, Memories, Hate

  8 Copy quote

• Generosity is also an act of freedom, a casting off of the constraints of prudence and self-interest.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Casting Off, Self, Generosity

  "What A Shy Waitress Taught Me About Generosity" by Marilynne Robinson, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 2, 2013.

  9 Copy quote

• You never know when you might be seeing someone for the last time.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Time, Knowing, Might

  Marilynne Robinson (2004). “Housekeeping: A Novel”, p.88, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient

  Marilynne Robinson

  Inspiring, Reason, This Life

  14 Copy quote

• It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Feelings, Knows

  Marilynne Robinson (2008). “Home: A Novel”, p.104, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• I experience religious dread whenever I find myself thinking that I know the limits of God’s grace, since I am utterly certain it exceeds any imagination a human being might have of it. God does, after all, so love the world.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Religious, Thinking, Imagination

  12 Copy quote

• I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Prayer, Grateful, Dark

  25 Copy quote

• That's one good thing about the way life is, that no one can know you if you don't let them.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Way, Life Is, Good Things

  Marilynne Robinson (2014). “Lila: A Novel”, p.205, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Every sorrow suggests a thousand songs and every song recalls a thousand sorrows and so they are infinite in number and all the same.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Song, Numbers, Sorrow

  "Housekeeping: A Novel". Book by Marilynne Robinson, www.abc.net.au. 1980.

  28 Copy quote

• I was read to as a small child, I read on my own as soon as I could, and I recall being more or less overwhelmed again and again - if not by what the books actually said, by what they suggested, what they helped me to imagine.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Children, Book, Overwhelmed

  16 Copy quote

• When we did not move or speak, there was no proof that we were there at all.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Moving, Speak, Proof

  Marilynne Robinson (2015). “Housekeeping”, p.49, Faber & Faber

  15 Copy quote

• Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Loneliness, Believe, Discovery

  14 Copy quote

• The Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don't have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?

  Marilynne Robinson

  Eye, Shining, World

  49 Copy quote

Page 2 of 9

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin