“Shoo the sparrow away and get on with supper. This is the first part of my new life strategy.” — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
In writing fiction, I can be free. I can use my life. The raw material is my experiences. — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life? — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
At one point in my life, I wanted to do a master's degree in Irish literature, but I ended up getting pregnant… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
I stare out the window and reflect on the similarity between writing and saving a life and the inevitable failure of one's… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“Maybe she was enjoying a moment in her life, a sliver of light, a flash memory of one of her kids, something… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
The writing life is one long, never-ending search for narrative. Well, it's not even a conscious searching. It happens even while you're… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“I could see my mother's beater Chevy way down below in the parking lot and I pushed the green button on her… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
'Cue for Treason,' by Geoffrey Trease, radicalized my young girl brain and made me want to be a gender-bending, sonnet-writing anarchist. It… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“He would be admitting to himself that life has suddenly become very short, very precious, that soon he'll no longer exist, that… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
The whole notion of pain, and how every individual experiences pain, is up for debate. We don't know how another person experiences… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“Everything in life, except her kids, made her impatient. She had tried to do a million things. She'd wanted to be a… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
There are so many things in my life that would be completely not on within the conservative church. And yet I think… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“She says isn't it funny how every second, every minute, every day, month, year, is accounted for, capable of being named -… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“She was a strange, unsettled planet that had had once sustained life. She was a language that I had thought I almost… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“...it was ludicrous to think that we could just talk our way out of shame, that shame was necessary, that it prevented… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“I was beginning to understand something I couldn't articulate. It was a jazzy feeling in my chest, a fluttering, a kind of… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“I told her [...] that I would bow down before her suffering with compassion, that she could control her life, that I… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
“When negative experiences such as having one's house shot at occur in my dad's life he tends to come alive. His confusion… — Miriam Toews Copy Share Image
Her faith in a loving and forgiving God is strong, but she worships laughter. — Miriam Toews Copy Share
“I heard Tash say: Nomi, you’re sad man. Get a grip. Walk away. What have I taught you? And I thought: You taught me… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
“Where are they going to get a camera? I asked. I don't know, said Noehmi. They'll probably get sidetracked along the way. Or they'll… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
“Nomi, he said, you just need to wake up to the fact that other people need to know where you're going. But there's nobody… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
I would never want to deny my Mennonite background and culture; I'll always feel like and be identified as a Mennonite and therefore possess… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
“When I opened up the bottle of wine, Thebes said whoa, you yanked that cork out of there like you were saving it from… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
The writing life is one long, never-ending search for narrative. Well, it's not even a conscious searching. It happens even while you're busy buying… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
“I think Ray might have wanted a son. One night when I was seven or eight I announced to my family that I wanted… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
The theme of sisters - of missing sisters, of needing sisters, the special love that sisters share or the antagonism sisters share - is… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
“..I followed her out the door and watched her walk down the road towards home, hers, and the bright yard light, and her own… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
“someday you’ll be gone, you’ll be dust, and then even less than dust. Nothing. There’s no other place to be. This world is good… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
...and I put on "All My Love" and watched the sun rise yet again and thought thank you Robert Plant for all your love… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess… — Miriam Toews Copy Share
![“I told her [...] that I would bow down before her suffering with compassion, that she could control her life, that I understood that pain is sometimes psychic, not only physical, that she wanted nothing more than to end it and to sleep forever, that for her life was over but that for me it was…” quote by Miriam Toews](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/e29/miriam-toews-3632_compassion_i-told-her-that-i-would-bow-down-before_2147120.png)
