Home > Author > Ursula Hegi
1 " That's the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You'll love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and -- in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love -- you come to understand the tragic, unrequited love of your own parents. "
― Ursula Hegi
2 " Some acts of faith, I believe, have the power to grant us something infinitely wiser than we imagine "
― Ursula Hegi , Floating in My Mother's Palm
3 " Marrying a woman who was reckless must have been the ultimate reckless act, requiring a lifetime of balancing to keep both of them safe "
4 " About endings....unless we do them well, we have to keep repeating them. "
― Ursula Hegi , Stones from the River (Burgdorf Cycle, #1)
5 " Given a choice, she would rather be the one who was persecuted than the one doing the persecuting-- both had a terrible price to pay, but she would rather endure humiliation and fear than grow numb to what it was to be human. "
6 " Now the purpose of her stories had changed. She spun them to discover their meaning. In the telling, she found, you reached a point where you could not go back, where—as the stories changed—it transformed you, too. "
7 " ...much of what the church calls sin is simply being human. "
8 " A perfectly happy marriage? There is no such thing. There are strong marriages that can survive problems, but happiness is such a brief condition, interrupted by difficulties and plain, boring routine. "
― Ursula Hegi , Intrusions
9 " The absence of doubt will turn humans into beasts. "
― Ursula Hegi , Children and Fire
10 " High in the hazy sky, the snowfkakes looked tiny and all alike, but as they drifted past the narrow window of the sewing room, all were unique - long or round or triangular - as if they'd borrowed their shapes from the clouds they'd come from. "
11 " And what she wanted more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - differences in size and race and belief.... "
12 " She also told me it wore down her spirit to live in the desert landscape that was parched by midsummer, to plant a garden each spring and struggle to keep it alive past July. "
― Ursula Hegi , Hotel of the Saints
13 " If I look closely, I can almost see myself floating in my mother's palm. Yet, when I shut my eyes, I find a different image of my mother releasing me as we dance in the storm and twirl in separate circles that cause the water to ripple from us in widening rings which merge in one ebbing bracelet of waves where the borders of the quarry meet the water, far from the center where my mother and I continue to spin our bodies in the radiant sheen of lightning. "
14 " She fought him by reminding herself what her father had said to Emil Hesping—that they lived in a country where believing had taken the place of knowing. "
15 " And what she hated more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more - no more differences in size and belief- differences that became justification for destruction. "
16 " Deine Anpassungsfäheigkeit—Your ability to adapt,” her husband said, “is far more dangerous to you than any of them will ever be. You’ll keep adapting and adapting until nothing is left. "
17 " And throughout all, Trudi wove the assurance...that - once someone had been in your life - you could keep that person there despite the agony of loss, as long as you had faith that you could bring the sum of all your hours together in one shining moment. "
18 " said, “but the school board—” He opened his arms in a helpless sweep. “If I can help . . .” The following Wednesday the bells of the chapel did not ring, and when the old women "
19 " it only occurred to me much later that the summer I was fourteen I had saved a life--not the life of a stranger as I had imagined--but the life I had taken for granted and which, in the years to come, I would take for granted again. "
20 " We Germans have a history of sacrificing everything for one strong leader,” her father had said. “It’s our fear of chaos. "
