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The Mermaid Chair QUOTES

The Mermaid Chair QUOTES

1 " There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

2 " I can't explain that, except to say there's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at least, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

3 " ...he felt God the same way arthritic monks felt rain coming in their joints. He felt only a hint of him. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

4 " There would be no grand absolution, only forgiveness meter out in these precious sips. I would well up from Hugh's heart in spoonfuls, and he would feed it to me. And it would be enough. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

5 " There are things without explanation, moments when life will become arranged in such odd ways that you imagine a whole vocabulary of meaning inside them. The breakfast smell struck me like that. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

6 " Still everyone, including the abbot, had said that he was running away from his grief. They'd had no idea what they were talking about. He'd cradled his grief, almost to the point of loving it. For so long he refused to give it up, because leaving it behind was like leaving her. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

7 " You can go other places, all right - you can live on the other side of the world, but you can't ever leave home "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

8 " I have come here not to find answers, but to find a way to live in a world without any. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

9 " All my life I've thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

10 " I didn't know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

11 " At forty-two, I had never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem--my chronic inability to astonish myself. I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they're being kind. I didn't fall. I dove. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

12 " If you aren't giving people something to talk about, you've become too dull. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

13 " I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they’re being kind. I didn’t fall – I dove. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

14 " You can't stop your heart from loving, really -- it's like standing out there in the ocean yelling at the waves to stop. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

15 " Yes, here I am returning, the woman who bore herself to the bottom and back. Who wanted to swim like dolphins, leaping waves and diving. Who wanted only to belong to herself. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

16 " So few people know what they're capable of. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

17 " Gazing into the mirror, I saw myself as I was-a black silhouette in the room, a woman whose darkness had completely leaked through. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

18 " I felt amazed at the choosing one had to do, over and over a million times daily--choosing love, then choosing it again...how loving and being in love could be so different. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

19 " She didn't even know how dangerous the truth could be, all the tiny, shattering seeds it carried. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair

20 " I marvel at how good I was before I met him, how I lived molded to the smallest space possible, my days the size of little beads that passed without passion through my fingers. So few people know what they're capable of. At forty-two I'd never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem - my chronic inability to astonish myself. "

― Sue Monk Kidd , The Mermaid Chair