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21 " That's how the world is, touch anything, change everything. Caution is needed. "
― Marilynne Robinson , Jack
22 " I’m a simple man who was brought up by a complicated man. So I have mannerisms and so on. Vocabulary. People can be misled. "
23 " Why should a man with no other expectation of an afterlife than adding his bit of clay to verdant Iowa experience dread? His father told him once that the more scrupulous a conscience is, the heavier the burden it carries. "
24 " ... how can one human being mean so much to another human being in terms of peace and assurance, as if loyalty were as real as gravity. "
25 " Clothed as he was in the garments of misfeasance and bewilderment, there lived in him a deeply arrogant man. "
26 " She said, “I think most people feel a difference between their real lives and the lives they have in the world. But they ignore their souls, or hide them, so they can keep things together, keep an ordinary life together. You don’t do that. In your own way, you’re kind of—pure. "
27 " ...might be about the difference between love and loneliness, and how people on either side can't understand people on the other. "
28 " Word of honor! "
29 " You know, I actually sort of enjoy my life. I know I shouldn’t. It could stand a lot of improvement. But maybe it’s the feeling you have that makes a life bad. Or makes it all right enough most of the time. "
30 " A shabby fellow with a furtive air can be as gallant as the next man, depending on circumstances. The "
31 " He suspected he drank to give himself a way of accounting for the vast difference between any present situation and the intentions that brought him to it. "
32 " It was probably best just to be quiet and wait until the conversation changed, as conversations will when no one is saying anything. "
33 " A shabby fellow with a furtive air can be as gallant as the next man, depending on circumstances. "
34 " A metaphysics is a great help in rationalizing scruple-driven behavior. "
35 " When people have wearied of life in Gilead, when they want another life altogether, they mention Chicago. "
36 " All that purpose. Always on their way somewhere. You had to admire. Maybe a chirp meant “I exist!” and then “I exist!,” as if it could matter. "
37 " My father was right. He told me once, The creatures want their lives. Every one of them. When this creature has an empty belly, he finds something to put in it. So, no need to worry. "
38 " Keeping his distance was a favor, a courtesy, to all those strangers who might, probably would, emerge somehow poorer for proximity to him. "
39 " think most people feel a difference between their real lives and the lives they have in the world. But they ignore their souls, or hide them, so they can keep things together, keep an ordinary life together. "
40 " She said, “meaninglessness would come as a terrible blow to most people. It would be full of significance for them. So it wouldn’t be meaningless. That’s where I always end up. Once you ask if there is meaning, the only answer is yes. You can’t get away from it. "