I really enjoyed my kids. They were good boys, you know, and interesting. And they didn't wear me out. — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“Children seem to think that every pleasant thing has to be a surprise.” — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“Her father told his children to pray for patience, for courage, for kindness, for clarity, for trust, for gratitude. Those prayers will… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I remember when I was a child... walking into the woods by myself and feeling the solitude around me build like electricity… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“Truth must be stalwart, Loyalty absolute, Generosity unstinting, while Appearance and Convention were children of the giant Hyprocrisy and must be put… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
Families will not be broken. Curse and expel them, send their children wandering, drown them in floods and fires, and old women… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“And she would feel that sharp loneliness she had felt every long evening since she was a child. It was the kind… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
The force behind the movement of time is a mourning that will not be comforted. That is why the first event is… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I was read to as a small child, I read on my own as soon as I could, and I recall being… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that's true enough. But children think they will grow into it… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“Why should a family with eight rambunctious children bother owning anything that could be damaged? They sat on the arms of their… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
Any father…must finally give his child up to the wilderness and trust to the providence of God. It seems almost a cruelty… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters. There are so many things you would never… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
That is how life goes--we send our children into the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems,… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
The loss of seriousness seems to me to be, in effect, a loss of hope. I think that the thing that made… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation,… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“Sometimes now when you crawl into my lap and settle against me and I feel that light, quick strength of your body… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
We have opted for petty determinisms - childhood trauma, genetic inheritance, social conditioning, etc. - that have made us comparatively passive. We… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“I'd never have believed I'd see a wife of mine doting on a child of mine. It still amazes me every time… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“There was something that charmed her in the fact that her brother, the one true worldling in the whole tribe of Boughtons,… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
I’m writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you’ve done in your life, and everyone does… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“I could never have imagined this world if I hadn't spent almost eight decades walking around in it. People talk about how… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share Image
“But I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
For our purposes as human beings, the mind is the center of everything. — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“I think sometimes there might be an advantage in making people aware how worn and stale these old transgressions are. It might take some… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
My Calvinism persuades me that we are open to God, in the sense that we are not delimited, not organisms with fixed attributes in… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music. — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“Every writer I know, when asked how to become a writer, responds with one word:Read.” — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“Faith for her was habit and family loyalty, a reverence for the Bible which was also literary, admiration for her mother and father. And… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.’ There are pleasures to be found where you… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
I sometimes am discouraged by what seems to be a sort of conventional disparagement of humankind. I think often people feel that they are… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing. So I am right to… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“My grandfather once told her if you couldn't read with cold feet, there wouldn't be a literate soul in the state of Maine.” — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
“Cranky old Leviticus gave us—gave Christ—not only “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” but also the rather forgotten “Thou shalt love the stranger… — Marilynne Robinson Copy Share
