Ryan Pemberton > Ryan's Quotes

“I think that’s what we are all meant to do, all we can do, with the gifts we have been given, be they experiences or talents. Those gifts are waiting to be used to touch others’ lives, as we patiently listen for and obediently follow the direction to which God is calling us. Because that’s what you do with gifts, you give them away.”
― Ryan J. Pemberton, Called: My Journey to C. S. Lewis's House and Back Again

“I write to see the world. I do not quite know what I see, and I certainly don’t know what I think, until I’ve written it. So when I look out at the world, I find myself wanting to trace its contours with words. I write because, when I look out at the world...I want to write it. When I look out at the world, I want to help it; and somehow, I feel as though by writing, I just might.”
― Ryan J. Pemberton, Called: My Journey to C. S. Lewis's House and Back Again

“I write because when I look out at the world...I want to write it. When I look out at the world, I want to help it; and somehow, I feel as though by writing, I just might.”
― Ryan J. Pemberton, Called: My Journey to C. S. Lewis's House and Back Again

“To be fair, I spend most days living inside my head--hoping that when I finally open my mouth or put pen to paper, what comes out will matter.”
― Ryan J. Pemberton, Called: My Journey to C. S. Lewis's House and Back Again

“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.”
― Shel Silverstein

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country