Home > Author > Charlotte Rogan
1 " I had been allowed to believe in man's innate goodness for the twenty-two years of my life, and I had hoped to carry the belief with me to my grave. "
― Charlotte Rogan , The Lifeboat
2 " Mr Reichman was brilliant and very good at what he did, but he was still a man, and men rarely knew what decisions a woman had or hadn't made. "
3 " ...and I wondered, not for the first time, if some of life's tragedy arose when people put themselves in situations they were not by nature suited for. "
― Charlotte Rogan
4 " I have lost patience with the idea of an insignificant human being standing up above the rest of us--whether he is called Reverend or Doctor or Judge--and shouting at us all about this thing or that. As soon as someone starts to pontificate in this way, I am apt to cut him off or leave the room, or, if this can't be done gracefully, I simply arrange that sweet vapid smile on my face that was so useful during the trial but that so infuriates Dr. Cole. After all, I have already taken the measure of my own insignificance, and I survived. "
5 " I wondered if all a person could hope for was illusion and luck, for I was forced to conclude that the world was fundamentally and appallingly dangerous. It is a lesson I will never forget. "
6 " When we are babies...we need an authoritative figure to guide and take care of us. We ask no questions about that authority and imagine that the small circumference of family life is the limit of the universe...As we mature, our horizon expands and we begin to question. This continues until we either throw over our creators--our parents--for good and take their place as the creative force in our lives or find replacements for them because the terror and responsibility are too great. People go one way or the other, and this accounts for all of the great personal and political divides throughout history. "
7 " I had been allowed to believe in man's innate goodness for the twenty-two years of my life, and I had hoped to carry the belief with me to my grave. I wanted to think that all people could have what they wanted, that there was no inherent conflict between competing interests, and that, if tragedies had to happen, they were not something mere human beings could control. "
8 " It was not the sea that was cruel, but the people "
9 " ...admirable traits are often exactly the same as negative ones, only expressed in a different way. "
10 " But the sleep of the saved is the same as the sleep of the Damned. "
11 " ...Mr. Hardie had little patience with that sort of conversation."Ye're born, ye suffer, and ye die. What made ye think ye deserved different?" he wondered aloud when the deacon's gentle answers failed to quiet them. "
12 " But you must admit that it is only in the lonely and challenging circumstances that our true natures show through. "
13 " The first thing a person says is often more honest than later explanations. "
14 " It’s my experience that we can come up with five reasons why something might have happened, and the truth will always be the sixth. "
15 " .. All this talk of being rescued, as if everything depends on it. On someone else. I say we plot a course and set about trying to rescue ourselves. "
16 " Am I to be blamed for this? We do not ask certain ideas to enter our heads and demand that others stay away. I believe that a person is accountable for his actions but not for the contents of his mind, so perhaps I am culpable for occasionally letting those thoughts turn themselves into words. "
17 " ... admirable traits are often exactly the same as negative ones, only expressed in a different way. "
18 " ...and whether I did or not, just hearing him suggest it made me feel stronger than I was, which is a testament to the power of words. "
19 " I said, "You will have to find your answers without me," which made him tap his fountain pen so hard in frustration that it left a large blot of ink on his compulsive little page of notes. If I had not felt so sorry for him, I would have laughed out loud at his desire to pin everything down, at his naïveté, at his childish desire to know. "
20 " got into the next one?” “What little "
