Bethany > Bethany's Quotes

“words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.”
― Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
― G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World

“I suddenly remember being very little and being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father's waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life. Then one day, I could do it. I held him, instead of him holding me, and all I wanted at that moment was to have it back the other way.”
― Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts

“This was something she would keep hidden within herself, maybe in place of the knot of pain and anger she had been carrying under her breastbone...a security blanket, an ace up her sleeve. She might never use it, but she would always feel its presence like a swelling secret stone, and that way when she let go of the rage, she would not feel nearly as empty.”
― Jodi Picoult, Mercy

“It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“He couldn't even tell whether he was angry or contrite, whether it was forgiveness he wanted or the power to forgive.”
― Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

“I was never a man of great ambition
I cried too easily
I didn't have a head for science
Words often failed me
While others prayed I only moved my lips”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“And now I understand something so frightening &wonderful-

how the mind clings to the road it knows,
rushing through crossroads, sticking

like lint to the familiar.”
― Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures

“When it’s over, I want to say: All my life I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”
― Mary Oliver

“I realized it was like looking into the sun—you shouldn't do it, because you'd turn your face away and be blind to everything else.”
― Jodi Picoult, Picture Perfect