The Awakening of Miss Prim Quotes

“So seek beauty, Miss Prim. Seek it in silence, in tranquillity; seek it in the middle of the night and at dawn. Pause to close doors while you seek it, and don't be surprised if it doesn't reside in museums or in palaces. Don't be surprised if, in the end, you find beauty to be not in Something but Someone.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“You say you're looking for beauty, but this isn't the way to achieve it, my dear friend. You won't find it while you look to yourself, as if everything revolved around you. Don't you see? It's exactly the other way around, precisely the other way around. You mustn't be careful, you must get hurt. What I am trying to explain, child, is that unless you allow the beauty you seek to hurt you, to break you and knock you down, you'll never find it.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“No, of course not. The Redemption is nothing like a fairy tale, Miss Prim. Fairy tales and ancient legends arelike the Redemption. Haven’t you ever noticed? It’s like when you copy a tree from the garden on a piece of paper. The tree from the garden doesn’t look like the drawing, does it? It’s the drawing that’s a bit, just a little bit, like the real tree.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“I have to tell you that equality has nothing to do with marriage. The basis of a good marriage, a reasonably happy marriage-don't delude yourself, there is no such thing as an entirely happy marriage-is, precisely, inequality. It's essential if two people are to feel mutual admiration. ................................
if you reflected a little more deeply you'd realize that you can only admire that which you do not possess. You do not admire in another a quality you have yourself, you admire what you don't have and which you see shining in another in all its splendor.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“This was where she discovered that intelligence, this wonderful gift, grows in silence, not in noise. It was here too that she learnt that a human mind, a truly human mind, is nurtured over time, with hard work and discipline.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“As novices, Carthusians are taught to turn around and close doors without pushing them or letting them swing shut. Do you know why?
Miss Prim replied that she had no idea.
So that they learn not to rush, to do one thing after another. So as to train them in restraint, patience, silence, and mindfulness in every gesture.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“...I have to admit that I've ... always felt burdened by nostalgia, by a desire to stop time, to recapture things that have been lost. A sense that everything, absolutely everything, is on a journey from which there's no return.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“if you were convinced that the world had forgotten how to think and teach, if you believed it had discarded the beauty of art and literature, if you thought it had crushed the power of the truth, would you let that world educate your children?”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“...is there anywhere in the world as full of beauty as Italy?”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“Really? Who takes part? And what do you debate?” “We all take part. We debate anything and everything: politics, economics, art, education, literature, religion . . . Are you surprised? Look around you, at your own life, your relationships. Isn’t life a continual debate?” For a moment Miss Prim thought of herself in the library telling the Man in the Wing Chair about the clamor in her head. Then she recalled discussing marriage with Hortensia Oeillet, feminism with the ladies of the Feminist League, education with her employer’s mother, fairy tales with the children of the house. Yes, in a way, life was indeed a continual debate.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“My dear Miss Prim, if you reflected a little more deeply you'd realize that you can only admire that which you do not possess. You do not admire in another a quality you have yourself, you admire what you don't have and which you see shining in another in all its splendor... If two people admire each other, they're not equals. If they were, they wouldn't admire each other. They're different, as each admires in the other what they don't find in themselves. It's difference, not similarity, that fosters admiration between two people.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“Nobody begins the search unless they’ve already found what they’re looking for. And no one finds what they’re looking for—the One they’re looking for—if that One doesn’t take the initiative and allow Himself to be found. It’s a game in which one player holds all the cards.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“I don't think we've explained it very well, Prudencia, said Hortensia. It's not the husband who has to be the source of harmony. It's not in him that you have to seek harmony. No, it's in the marriage, in the combination of the two of you, that you've got to look for it.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“This is where she discovered that intelligence, this wonderful gift, grows in silence, not in noise. It was here too that she learned that a human mind, a truly human mind, is nurtured over time, with hard work and discipline.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“Look at it this way: if you were convinced that the world had forgotten how to think and teach, if you believed it had discarded the beauty of art and literature, if you thought it had crushed the power of the truth, would you let that world educate your children?”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“How could you fail to feel uplifted when a voice was telling you at every step that the year, month, day, season, place, even that very moment were blessed?”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“[She] had the indefinable charm of someone who said little but thought much. Miss Prim had always felt that such people were at a marked advantage. They never said anything tactless, never spouted nonsense, never had cause to regret their words or justify themselves.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“If you travel in a hurry, without pausing or resting, you’ll return without having found what you’re looking for.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“What I mean is that modern women like you are all, to a greater or lesser extend, hard...It's the yearning. Plainly and simply, it's the yearning."

Yearning? For what? {Miss Prim]

The yearning you all display to prove your worth, to show that you know this and that, to ensure that you can have it all. The yearning to succeed and, even more, the yearning not to fail; the yearning not to be seen as inferior, but instead even as superior, simply for being exactly what you believe you are, or rather what you've been made to believe you are. The inexplicable yearning for the world to give you credit simply for being women. {Lulu Thiberville]”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“I’d go to the ends of the earth to convince you to come to Tahiti,” he said with a strange intensity to his voice. “I’d do anything in my power, absolutely anything. But I think the journey would be a failure—a terrible failure—unless you were sure at the outset you wanted to know Tahiti.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“My mother’s problem is that she can’t submit to any authority. She lost her parents years ago, and she lost her husband. She takes no account of her relatives’ views—she never has—and especially not her children’s. There’s no human or spiritual discipline to which she’ll subject her will. She just has her own opinions, and they’re the only tribunal that’s permitted to judge her when she makes a mistake. Can you imagine what you would be like if you didn’t have anyone close who was capable of influencing you? Anyone to point out your flaws, to confront you when you went too far, to correct you when you did something wrong?” Miss”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“when you decide to take the second path you never allow yourself to see reality as it is, without excuses. You tell yourself that if you don’t pursue your own happiness, they’ll suffer too; that you have a right to be happy and you only get one life; that it’ll be better for them, they’re young, they’ll get over it. But the truth is, you make a choice and there is always a price to pay.” Miss”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“I forgave her many years ago ... It's she who blames herself, but she can't see that. It's easier to project blame into the eyes of others and defend yourself against that than to find it within yourself, where there's no possible defense.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“Él dice que así se aprende a amar los libros, que tiene mucho que ver con la memoria. Dice que cuando los hombres se enamoran de las mujeres, aprenden de memoria su cara para poder recordarla después.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, El despertar de la señorita Prim

“-Al amor, me refiero al amor. Ya existe, no lo dude usted. Solo debe descubrir dónde está, seguir el rastro, investigar. Exactamente como hace un detective.”
― Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera, El despertar de la señorita Prim

“most women have no conversation. And the worst thing is, it’s not because they’re incapable of it, it’s because they don’t bother trying.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“He always said that angels are in the simple things; you never find angels where things are complicated. He believed that the small things are important.” They”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“Because, fundamentally, nothing changes, you know. The huge old mistakes emerge time and again from the depths, like cunning monsters stalking prey. If you could sit at the window and watch human history unfold, do you know what you'd see? I'll tell you. You'd see an immense chain of mistakes repeated over the centuries, that's what. You'd watch them, arrayed in different garb, hidden behind various masks, concealed beneath a multitude of disguises, but they'd remain the same.”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“Es más fácil proyectar la culpa en los ojos de los demás y defenderse de ello que encontrarla en el interior de uno mismo, donde no hay defensa posible”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim

“La señorita Prim solía despreciar aquello que secretamente temía no llega nunca a obtener”
― Natalia Sanmartín Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim