Catherine > Catherine's Quotes

“Within that quiet little girl with no apparent needs lived a person with a great imagination. In that shell I lived and grew and planned, until there emerged a way to pull all the loose threads of my life together.”
― A.R. Cecil, Journeys to Mother Love : Nine Women Tell their Stories of Forgiveness & Healing

“On the fences the shiny blackbirds with red epaulets clicked their dry call. The meadowlarks sang like water, and the wild doves, concealed among the bursting leaves of the oaks, made a sound of restrained grieving.”
― John Steinbeck, The Red Pony

“The act of seeking is essential to life.”
― Mark Fraley

“Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background and your duties in the middle distance and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellow men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not waht you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness - are you willing to do these things for even a day?

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front of you so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open - are you willing to do these things for even a day?

Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world, - stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death, - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love? Then you can keep Christmas. And if you keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.”
― Caroline Kennedy, A Family Christmas

“At that moment I knew without a doubt that God himself was speaking to me. He cared. He was there. He came to help even when I could not call out loud or explain my fear in words.”
― Catherine Lawton, Journeys to Mother Love : Nine Women Tell their Stories of Forgiveness & Healing

“But in the end you must let God be in charge of taking your fish and loaves and multiplying them out to the people He knows need them.”
― Jeff Gerke, The Art & Craft of Writing Christian Fiction: The Complete Guide to Finding Your Story, Honing Your Skills, & Glorifying God in Your Novel

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer.”
― Keith Richards

“At sixty one, I was at the top of my professional career, a wife, mother, and grandmother with many wonderful friends--and absolutely terrified....I was unaware of living as multiple identifies, but did spend my life running away from a 'me' I could neither understand nor tolerate....The first step to becoming one whole person happened to me the day in therapy when I became aware of the three adults who had been living in separate compartments in my brain. I saw them and they saw each other....A perfect three-point landing.”
― Janyne McConnaughey, Brave : A Personal Story of Healing Childhood Trauma

“...
Our Way is called a Narrow Way
often a lonely road
a road of trusting uncertainty
...
I need
A safe space—no matter how small—
to get off the road till my vision is clear
till I can see through the tears
till hands steady against the fears
...
I need
To remember that my life
is hidden in the cleft of the Rock
that to surrender is to stay, to still,
to remember love always makes a Way
...”
― Alice Scott-ferguson, Pausing in the Passing Places: Poems