American Mother Quotes

“Turning your back will not change the direction of the knife.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“When he got home, he said: "The first thing you lose in war is the truth.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“Scientists say that the world is held together with atoms, and of course, it is. But it is also held together with stories.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“The truth is kaleidoscopic, it has many mirrors, and it can be viewed from a variety of angles.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“Listening is the quiet soul of storytelling”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“Why in the world would an ambulance be there except to tend to a house full of broken hearts?”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“He was the sort of person who, if he had a mirror, he wouldn’t stare into it, but break it in two in order to hold the pieces up against one another and create an infinity.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“Even the worst of humans demand a portion of love.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“She is an American mother. It is not a story that often gets told. Hers is a small sky though it contains so much rain. The story sometimes forgets her. She is often invisible. She dissolves at the edge of someone else’s words. But she has decided, quite against the grain, that the world is available to her too.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“He didn’t just want to be at the edge, he wanted to become the edge.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“Is an aid worker any less American, less essential, than a desk sergeant? Is an ambulance driver any less important than a Marine? And what happens when an American citizen goes in search of truth for the greater good? Is that not as patriotic as the actions of a soldier in a firefight?”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“It struck me then that it wasn’t just one reporter who had been beheaded. The knife had been unsheathed to threaten all journalists everywhere.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“It is impossible to learn something that you think you already know. That is America in a nutshell. We think we know, so we don't even try to learn.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother

“Optimism is far more difficult than pessimism. Optimism lives outside itself. Pessimism simply feeds off itself.”
― Colum McCann, American Mother