Jan Karon > Quotes

“As long as you have any floor space at all, you have room for books! Just make two stacks of books the same height, place them three or four feet apart, lay a board across them, and repeat. Viola! Bookshelves!”
― Jan Karon

“I'd like you to know that I have forgiven him. Again and again. Once done, course, back comes the Enemy to persecute and persecute, and I must ante up to God and forgive yet again.”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“One of the things that makes a dead leaf fall to the ground is the bud of the new leaf that pushes it off the limb.”
― Jan Karon

“Lord, make me a blessing to someone today”
― Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford

“The firefly only shines when on the wing, So it is with us--when we stop, we darken.”
― Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford

“Are you reading your Bible?"
Ah, well...I was."
And then you quit."
You got it."
Then, you can expect to be weak on one of your flanks, and that's precisely where the Enemy will come after you with a vengeance.”
― Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford

“Phillipians 4:13 for Pete's sake!”
― Jan Karon, A New Song

“I believe that's when God first started speaking to my heart--the very day I started speaking to His!”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“When the trees and the power lines crashed around you, when the very roof gave way above you, when the light turned to darkness and water turned to dust, did you call on Him?

When you called on Him, was He somewhere up there, or was He as near as your very breath?”
― Jan Karon, A New Song

“Give me faith, Lord, to know Your Presence as surely as I know the beating of my own heart. I've felt so far from You....”
― Jan Karon, In This Mountain

“In Ireland there’s no such thing as bad weather ~~~ only the wrong clothes.
(In the Company of Others)”
― Jan Karon

“...weary of k knowing too much and understanding too little.”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“When we turn from our sin, and have the blessed forgiveness of the Almighty, then we can ask Him to run things, and let Him be in charge.”
― Jan Karon, These High, Green Hills

“Sometimes you have to gag on fancy before you can appreciate plain, th' way I see it. For too many years, I ate fancy, I dressed fancy, I talked fancy. A while back, I decided to start talkin' th' way I was raised t' talk, and for th' first time in forty years, I can understand what I'm sayin'.”
― Jan Karon

“He eyed in the far corner of the room the carton of books they'd schlepped across the pond(ocean) They were both fearful of being stuck without a decent book, and who knew they would find everything from Virgil to Synge on the shelves of a fishing lodge?”
― Jan Karon, In the Company of Others

“There may be circumstances in this life that God uses to keep bringing us back to Him, looking for His grace.”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“I've got a lot to download on your mercy and grace. I've always rushed up to You and dumped whatever it was and hurried away, fascinated by my own busyness. I want to turn all this over to You slowly, carefully, examining every fragment as I pass it off, so there'll never be any question about it again. Every time I've dumped and run, I've nearly always run back and snatched it out of Your hands. Help me in this.......Right now, I'm certain of only one thing - that You love us, and that's where we all have to begin.”
― Jan Karon

“RATS-IN-A-POKE!”
― Jan Karon, These High, Green Hills

“The standing fields [ready to harvest]were the legions who hadn't filled their God-vacuum with the One who was born to fill it; the standing fields were those who waited for someone to reach out and speak the truth, and tell them how they might be saved.”
― Jan Karon, Out to Canaan

“Sorrow and joy, he thought, so inextricably entwined that he could scarcely tell where one left off and the other began.”
― Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford

“Paul said in the second epistle...the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine...they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn from the truth and wander away to myths.”
― Jan Karon, Out to Canaan

“He was praying the Psalms, as he'd done in times past, with the enemies of King David translated into his own enemies of fear and remorse and self-loathing, which, in their legions, had become as armies of darkness.”
― Jan Karon, In This Mountain

“Alis volat propiss. (She flies with her own wings.)”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“We must stop listening to voices from the past--and we must stop immediately.--Father Tim”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“He remembered the gravestone of a woman parishioner in the churchyard of St. John's in the Grove. DEMURE AT LAST, it read. He thought that the single most definitive and amusing epitaph he'd ever come across.”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“He liked being in a place where everything from forgetfulness to homicide might be blamed on the heat.”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“...I've forgiven him. Again and again. Once done, of course, back comes the Enemy to persecute and prosecute, and I must ante up to God and forgive yet again.”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“Loving can be hard. Sometimes we don't feel loving, but it isn't all about feeling. Very often it is about will. Practice that if you can.”
― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

“In his bachelor's heart of hearts, he loved pie with an intensity that alarmed him. Yet, when he was offered seconds, he usually refused. "Wouldn't you like another piece of this nice coconut pie, Father?" he might be asked. "No, I don't believe I'd care for anymore," he'd say. An outright lie!”
― Jan Karon