Geraldine Brooks Quotes

Quotes about:

• To know a man's library is, in some measure, to know a man's mind.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Attitude, Men, Mind

  Geraldine Brooks (2006). “March”, p.19, Penguin

  45 Copy quote

• There are always a few who stand up in times of communal madness and have the courage to say that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Madness, Divides, Greater

  13 Copy quote

• A book is more than the sum of its materials. It is an artifact of the human mind and hand.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Book, Hands, Mind

  Geraldine Brooks (2008). “People of the Book: A Novel”, p.31, Penguin

  16 Copy quote

• If there is one class of person I have never quite trusted, it is a man who knows no doubt.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Men, Class, Doubt

  Geraldine Brooks (2006). “March”, p.78, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

• She was like a butterfly, full of color and vibrancy when she chose to open her wings, yet hardly visible when she closed them.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Butterfly, Color, Wings

  Geraldine Brooks (2011). “Caleb's Crossing: A Novel”, p.17, Penguin

  13 Copy quote

• Moral certainty can deafen people to any truth other than their own.

  Geraldine Brooks

  People, Moral, Certainty

  3 Copy quote

• The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Imagination, Historical, Fiction

  6 Copy quote

• Writing is like bricklaying; you put down one word after another. Sometimes the wall goes up straight and true and sometimes it doesn't and you have to push it down and start again, but you don't stop; it's your trade.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Wall, Writing, Down And

  4 Copy quote

• It is human nature to imagine, to put yourself in another's shoes. The past may be another country. But the only passport required is empathy.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Country, Writing, Past

  7 Copy quote

• Who is the brave man--he who feels no fear? If so, then bravery is but a polite term for a mind devoid of rationality and imagination.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Fear, Men, Imagination

  Geraldine Brooks (2006). “March”, p.106, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Perseverance, Persistence, Voice

  Geraldine Brooks (2006). “March”, p.167, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• If a man is to lose his fortune, it is a good thing if he were poor before he acquired it, for poverty requires aptitude.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Men, Poverty, Aptitude

  Geraldine Brooks (2006). “March”, p.74, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

• Write what you know. Every guide for the aspiring author advises this. Because I live in a long-settled rural place, I know certain things. I know the feel of a newborn lamb's damp, tight-curled fleece and the sharp sound a well-bucket chain makes as it scrapes on stone. But more than these material things, I know the feelings that flourish in small communities. And I know other kinds of emotional truths that I believe apply across the centuries.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Believe, Writing, Emotional

  6 Copy quote

• I swim in a sea of words. They flow around me and through me and, by a process that is not fully clear to me, some delicate hidden membrane draws forth the stuff that is the necessary condition of my life.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Art, Motivation, Sea

  "A Home in Fiction". Boyer Lectures 2011: "The Idea of Home", Lecture 4, www.abc.net.au. December 11, 2011.

  3 Copy quote

• They say the Lord's Day is a day of rest, but those who preach this generally are not women.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Lord, Day Of Rest

  Geraldine Brooks (2011). “Caleb's Crossing: A Novel”, p.74, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

• Instead of idleness, vanity, or an intellect formed by the spoon-feeding of others, my girls have acquired energy, industry, and independence.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Girl, Vanity, Independence

  Geraldine Brooks (2006). “March”, p.85, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

• Despair is a cavern beneath our feet and we teeter on its very brink.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Feet, Despair, Caverns

  Geraldine Brooks (2002). “Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague”, p.159, Penguin

  6 Copy quote

• Certainly I'm still mining my experiences as a journalist. I think it's no coincidence that all three of my novels basically are about how people act in a time of catastrophe. Do they go to their best self or their worst self?

  Geraldine Brooks

  Thinking, Self, People

  6 Copy quote

• We were too intelligent, too cynical for war. Of course, you don't have to be stupid and primitive to die a stupid, primitive death.

  Geraldine Brooks

  War, Stupid, Intelligent

  Geraldine Brooks (2008). “People of the Book: A Novel”, p.41, Penguin

  3 Copy quote

• And at this moment in history, our core value happens to be the raw, aching truth of the human predicament. It may also be the only belief that can save us as a species. A species that will continue to find comfort and delight in the companionship of animals, the miracle of birds, the colours of the corals and the majesty of the forests. We are in it together, on this blue spinning marble in the cold and silent void. And we must act on that belief, if we are going to be able to continue to live a good life here, in this beautiful and fragile country, on this lovely planet, our only home.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Beautiful, Country, Good Life

  3 Copy quote

• ...The hagaddah came to Sarajevo for a reason. It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox. p. 361

  Geraldine Brooks

  People, Catholic, Tests

  3 Copy quote

• You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Writing, Past, Empathy

  3 Copy quote

• September 11, 2001, revealed heroism in ordinary people who might have gone through their lives never called upon to demonstrate the extent of their courage.

  Geraldine Brooks

  People, September 11, Heroism

  3 Copy quote

• When you're writing non-fiction, you go as far as you can go, and then ethically you have to stop. You can't go. You can't suppose. You can't imagine. And I think there's something in human nature that wants to finish the story.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Writing, Thinking, Fiction

  3 Copy quote

• We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Dog, Animal, Elephants

  6 Copy quote

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