David > David's Quotes

“In God's design, the Israelites and those of other nations who know God, could never be whole without each other. They were each a single note of a song, an instrument part of a great orchestra.”
― Christine Graef, To Light the Sabbath Candles: Reconciling One New Humanity at the Lord’s Table

“Some people, I am told, have memories like computers, nothing to do but punch the button and wait for the print-out. Mine is more like a Japanese library of the old style, without a card file or an indexing system or any systematic shelf plan. Nobody knows where anything is except the old geezer in felt slippers who has been shuffling up and down those stacks for sixty-nine years. When you hand him a problem he doesn't come back with a cartful and dump it before you, a jackpot of instant retrieval. He finds one thing, which reminds him of another, which leads him off to the annex, which directs him to the east wing, which sends him back two tiers from where he started. Bit by bit he finds you what you want, but like his boss who seems to be under pressure to examine his life, he takes his time.”
― Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird

“I'm a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration- joy and pain sit side by side. The blues started off in some field, some plantation, in some mind, in some imagination, in some heart. The blues blew over to the next plantation, and then the next state. The blues went south to north, got electrified and even sanctified. The blues got mixed up with jazz and gospel and rock and roll.”
― Cornel West, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir

“The central statement of faith in Judaism is the Sh’ma, which reads: “Hear Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One.” Only in silence is it possible to hear.”
― Alan Morinis, Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar

“Who is rich?” asks Ben Zoma,17 and he answers, “One who is content with his lot.”
― Alan Morinis, Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar

“Compassion is the feeling of empathy which the pain of one being of itself awakens in another; and the higher and more human the beings are, the more keenly attuned are they to re-echo the note of suffering which, like a voice from heaven, penetrates the heart.”
― Alan Morinis, Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar

“When you live with other people and you are content to make a mess in shared spaces, you dishonor the people you live with.”
― Alan Morinis, Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar

“Judaism has a lot of rituals, a lot of nonnegotiable behaviors. But we also allow for a great deal of personal freedom. Personal freedom and its sister trait, personal responsibility, are what make the religion so hard. But they are also what make the religion so satisfying.”
― Faye Kellerman, Grievous Sin

“had enough time to think about it.”
― Faye Kellerman, Walking Shadows

“What a crock of bullshit, Decker thought. He felt guilty. Initially, she’d reacted with anger, which was healthy, and he’d quelled her fire. Now, she was internalizing the bad hand she’d been dealt. “Rina, none of this is your fault. And no one is after your kids. If they’re out of the way,”
― Faye Kellerman, The Ritual Bath

“Decker looked at his sack lunch, sitting on the passenger’s seat of his unmarked. Guess he was going to eat in the car”
― Faye Kellerman, Jupiter's Bones

“The water rippled when he leaned in; he studied what he saw. Against a background of blue sky, there was his face, broad of forehead and overly long, and he was surprised at the new look of age on him. To everybody else, I must look ten years beyond twenty-seven, he thought, and it made him glad. Even had begun to fear gaps and what they might mean. Wide-spanning spaces between age and its weight of language and ability had begun to feel like easy reasons for saying good-bye. He saw inside the calm reflection a gull flying low over his head, braced by clouds drifting east toward Runnelstown.
Turning back, he walked north around moss-based trees and finally found her digging wild onions growing thick next to fern. With her back to him she said, "Tired does one of two things-either builds the soul or breaks the heart. Can't decide which it is right now. All I know is I'm tired.”
― Melinda Haynes, Mother of Pearl

“Just wait until that husband of yours rolls over and goes to sleep without bothering to touch you in six months, Just wait until there's nothing at all between the sheets and you dry up and feel worthless and look in the mirror and begin to believe it's your fault he doesn't want you. Just wait until it dawns on you one day that the real reason he doesn't want you is because he doesn't want himself.”
― Melinda Haynes, Willem's Field

“This one hear will never be easy, because he's never learned to be false.”
― Melinda Haynes, Willem's Field

“There's not enough time spend between the sheet's to compensate the breach”
― Melinda Haynes

“You said earlier you knew the color of hell. I just figured you had kinfolk somewhere as living proof.”
― Melinda Haynes, Chalktown