King's Row Quotes

“The preacher who has too much hard work to do becomes perhaps too zealous, he believes too much in himself, he thinks of himself as an emissary of God—and naturally he thinks who is there to question God?—and he too becomes impatient. He merely wishes you to listen while he tells you.”
― Henry Bellamann, King's Row

“This universe was not conceived in beauty. It was conceived in tragedy and travail. It evolved, and continues to be, only in the throes of desperate struggle. Pain, and ugliness, and brute force rule it. “In the midst of that continuous hurricane of destruction and death there are born from time to time men who resolve this disorder. They create another vision from the fire and dust of disaster. They are poets, and musicians, and artists. That is their answer to the ugliness of the world. They do not ask to be understood. They do not even ask to be liked. But without them we should find the universe an intolerable habitation. They lessen its terrors, and ameliorate the eternal torture of its unanswered and unanswerable questions. They are a gallant company. They go singing down the highways of the world, and the echoes of their words comfort us when they have passed. To that small company—that company of God’s own elect—Robert Callicott belonged.”
― Henry Bellamann, Kings Row