The Evolution of Annabel Craig Quotes

“some people who were otherwise decent and faithful would lose their decency in order to protect their faith.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“We have the purpose,” Darrow responded with equal passion, “of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States, and you know it, and that is all.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Did it matter how long it had taken for a flower to become a flower? Did it matter if it was a day or a million years? Either way, life was improbable, miraculous.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“People who say they know the Bible from cover to cover but don’t act on it are the ones who cause the trouble,” he said. “Better to concentrate on this world than spend too much time thinking about the next.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“could now hear Darrow more clearly. “There are in the first two chapters of Genesis alone two different versions of the origin of man. In the first, Adam is created after the animals and Eve along with him. In the second, man is created before the animals, and Eve is created from his rib. Can Your Honor therefore say what is given as the origin of man as shown in the Bible? Is there any human being who can tell us?” The question seemed to alarm the bystanders and, at the same time, refocus their attention. For my part, I don’t think I was the only person who wanted to go grab a Bible at that moment and reread Genesis. Even though I had read it a hundred times and knew most of it by heart, I don’t think I had ever noticed the contradiction. I felt both amazed and ashamed.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Darrow’s voice came over the loudspeaker, not preachy, like Bryan’s, but firm. “The Bible is not one book,” I heard him say. “The Bible is made up of sixty-six books written over a period of about a thousand years by many different authors.” Just then a sound began to underscore Darrow’s words. It was a hiss and popping, like the sound George’s ham rig had made so often. “It is a book primarily of religion and morals,” Darrow was saying. “It is not a book of science. Never was and was never meant to be.” Darrow’s words became more difficult to make out. “…geology…” “mystery”…“thought the sun went around the earth…” The hissing grew louder, and I started to think the speakers were breaking down. But then it was clear what was happening: A swarm of bees was spilling”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“William Jennings Bryan had once written and often said, “It is better to trust in the Rock of Ages than to know the age of the rocks.” It was admittedly a catchy play on words, but the Rock of Ages, as people knew it, was Christianity, and the opening lines of the hymn were Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee. I couldn’t avoid these two questions: Why were we hiding? And from what? —”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“had been ready to answer whatever questions he’d have for me. I had been ready to tell him that even if he thought he was still the man I’d married, I was no longer the woman he’d married. I was ready to remind him that I was only twenty-three years old, and that nothing that had happened between us in the last three years had made me feel as full of life as what had happened in the last three weeks.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“butterfly, colored more perfectly than any of the cards made by the women in the school lunchroom, lit on a moss-covered stone. I remembered the pale yellow and deep purple tomatoes on the long-ago day with my mother. I thought of the different strains of strawberries my father had planted, and the seed catalogues he’d pored over, looking for new blends of grass. No one seemed to have a problem believing that other things in nature had altered over time. Only man was supposed to have been perfect from the start.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Bryan, almost meekly, suggested he would have to trust the press to report what he had planned to say. I was disappointed too. I think some part of me still hoped Bryan would find a way to come out on top. I had no wish to imagine a world—or a life—that had not been created by God, or a world in which no miracles had happened, or ever could. But Bryan’s viewpoint seemed to demand that we remain hamstrung—even spellbound—by mystery.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Mr. Bryan, the Bible says only Adam and Eve and their two sons were on the earth. Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?” “No, sir. I leave the agnostics to hunt for her,” Bryan replied, delighted—as the spectators were—with his answer.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“I’m saying I know the Bible holds truth, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily holds facts.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“When Reverend Byrd came back outside, he was carrying a box of books, which he hoisted into the cart. “Do you believe in evolution?” I asked him. “Evolution isn’t a belief,” he said. “And the Bible isn’t science.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Does one broken promise make another one all right?” I asked. He patted my shoulder. “I believe in a God who understands that there are times humans can’t keep all their promises. I think you should pray on whether this has to be one of those times for you.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Maybe even the most devout among them yearned to consider other explanations of how the world worked than “God, in mysterious ways.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“For the first time ever, I was glad we didn’t have children. I wouldn’t have wanted them growing up with a father whose goodness could be degraded and whose distance would be likely whenever things got difficult.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“In Dayton, as elsewhere, there was a North Methodist-Episcopal church and a South Methodist-Episcopal church—divided not by the town’s geography but by our opposite allegiances during the Civil War. Still, no matter what our parents’ and grandparents’ views during the war had been, all Methodists believed in free will; believed in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; believed in the Bible as all that was necessary for salvation. That wasn’t the same as believing it was literally true. But I’d never really thought about that. I’d never had to. You don’t need to question the truths of a childhood until they are challenged—or contradicted. I grew up with light from candles, warmth from stoves, water hauled from wells in buckets. None of those things had any true meaning for me until they’d been replaced by light from electric lamps, warmth from steam heat, and water from a kitchen faucet. Growing up, I knew nothing about Jews except that Christ had been one but had been crucified by a lot of others. I’m not sure I’d even”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“The South was a place that grew perfect strawberries and green tomatoes and white pumpkins and fat dogwood trees. It grew glorious church choirs and generous neighbors and grace. But the South I think of now was also a place where people strained for salvation, and lost things they loved, deplored Catholics and Jews, and got hanged for having dark skin. The South grew bullies who would use anything at hand—threats of damnation, mocking songs, blue blazes of brimstone—to build a wall against the future because of what it might destroy.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“But the South I think of now was also a place where people strained for salvation, and lost things they loved, deplored Catholics and Jews, and got hanged for having dark skin. The South grew bullies who would use anything at hand—threats of damnation, mocking songs, blue blazes of brimstone—to build a wall against the future because of what it might destroy.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“you are in love—whether with a person or an idea or the Heavenly Father—you will usually see what you want to see; you will hear what you want to hear. And, really whether you want to or not, you’ll feel what you can’t help but feel. “Smile”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Peering at the photographs, discovering the minutiae and the grandness of a moment, I allowed myself to wonder if this was how God got to see all the world all the time.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“it took me a long time to get used to living there. I missed the early risings and the early-to-beds of life on a farm. I missed the sounds: the low hum of bumblebees working the strawberry blooms, the scattered but pristine birdsong. When you grow up on a strawberry farm, you probably always miss the smell too—the sweetness that, even before”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“missed the sounds: the low hum of bumblebees working the strawberry blooms, the scattered but pristine birdsong.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“And if you didn’t hold to the Bible on Creation, what else might you not believe? I had never thought to ask. There had been no need to. The sky was blue, the hills were purple, the summers were long, and the Bible was true.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig