Erika Robuck > Quotes

“The past would haunt when the present let up, and always, always the future would loom with its certainty of tragedy and pain.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Though it was the end of February, the day was a lazy sort of cold. The sun slipped through the cloud in bursts, reminding the landscape that it was still there, prodding snow piles to relax into puddles and stirring sleeping seeds under the ground.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Remembrance. Even more, confession. It did always made the heavy things come loose.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Not longevity. Not peace. Not some chloroformed happiness. Not tranquility. They are all such common goals ... No. I want audacity. High color. Total independence.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“A storm of yellow notepads, broken pencils, papers, and books littered the tables and floor of the room, along with a collection of empty beer cans. It looked as if a party of wild librarians had just cleared out.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Like the devil, the Nazis know that to divide is to control and conquer.”
― Erika Robuck, Sisters of Night and Fog

“Look at us. A line of symmetry. Two halves of a whole. Two peas in a pod. A pair of queens. Though your card, I must observe, has aged better than mine, which has been played too often.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Hope is not a flimsy thing based on an outcome,” says Abbé Rabourg. “It’s a deep well—its source in God—from which we can draw in any situation.”
― Erika Robuck, Sisters of Night and Fog

“The thing about trips is that all the trouble is in the anticipation.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“The scent of honeysuckle hangs in the darkness like the thick glob of sugar at the bottom of a glass of lemonade.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“It was so good going down, but the aftertaste made you damn near hate it.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Company is a burden to those at home in the solitude of their souls.”
― Erika Robuck, The House of Hawthorne

“In the Bible, when a civilization goes so off the rails the children in it have no hope of being brought up with decency, God takes his vengeance. God’s vengeance is His justice.”
― Erika Robuck, The Last Twelve Miles

“We can take on the suffering of others, not only for their redemption, but also for our own.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“The past and future are the devil’s playground—the place he can torture us with regret and anxiety. The present is rarely a place of suffering.”
― Erika Robuck, The Invisible Woman

“Nights are hard for anyone who has lived long enough,”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“of”
― Erika Robuck, The Invisible Woman

“The depiction of the vibrancy of youth and its stubborn refusal to succumb to darkness reveals the remarkable human capacities for resilience and hope. Macadam and Worrall have done great honor to the women and men in these pages by keeping the flame of memory burning.”
—Erika Robuck, National Bestselling Author of Sisters of Night and Fog”
― Erika Robuck

“I look back at the glimpse of light in the center of Magdalene, near her heart, and remember the beauty to be found even in sorrow--beauty as a result of transformation, an admission of weakness, and a total dependence on the Creator. Even in the darkest hour, our hearts can allow us to see the light.”
― Erika Robuck, The House of Hawthorne

“He thinks expression ruins me,” she said. “Why?” “Because he thinks he should be enough for me. He needs me to orbit him. He wishes to pluck me from orbit when he needs me and then send me back once he’s used me up.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Maybe one only has to be willing to reach out with empty hands for God to fill them,”
― Erika Robuck, Sisters of Night and Fog

“The leaves on the banyan in her front yard hung motionless and nearly indistinguishable from the night sky. She could still feel the banyan's presence, though, its great woody roots strangling some old host tree. She remembered when Hemingway had planted a banyan at his house and told her its parasitic roots were like human desire. At the time she'd thought it romantic. She hadn't understood his warning.”
― Erika Robuck, Hemingway's Girl

“Grandbabies are life’s great gift.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“She was a woman who lived however she wished without care for another, without putting the needs of those around her before her own selfish opinions. We are breeding a nation of such thinkers and individuals--intent on personal expression at all costs--and that will lead to war. I might be more a successful writer if I did not seek to address human truth, but rather spewed out my own limited opinions without care for reader or critic or any kind of propriety.”
― Erika Robuck

“I often thought grief was like madness—the lack of control, the overwhelming waves of emotion with unexpected triggers, breathlessness, night sweats, nightmares, and the feeling of utter aloneness, like that of standing on a ledge in a violent wind.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“When a civilization goes so off the rails the children in it have no hope of being brought up with decency, God takes his vengeance. God's vengeance is His justice.”
― Erika Robuck, The Last Twelve Miles

“Elizabeth’s heart feels a pang of jealousy, followed by a burst of love at seeing her happy family. It’s both freeing and agonizing not to be needed.
That is the nature of motherhood, she thinks”
― Erika Robuck, The Last Twelve Miles

“I walked down the hallway and entered the sitting room. A storm of yellow notepads, broken pencils, papers and books littered the tables and floor of the room, along with a collection of empty beer cans. It looked as if a party of wild librarians had just cleared out.”
― Erika Robuck, Call Me Zelda

“Mariella felt as if there were signs all around her that losing what you loved was worse than never having it to begin with.”
― Erika Robuck, Hemingway's Girl

“The what-ifs are much harder to live with than the consequences of action inspired by a desire to help. Inspired by love and a need to serve.”
― Erika Robuck, Sisters of Night and Fog