The 19th Wife Quotes

“Last year when my grandma fell and broke her hip she couldn't paint her toenails anymore. So my grandpa started doing it for her, even after he fell and broke his hip, too. For me, that's love.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“I must say a few words about memory. It is full of holes. If you were to lay it out upon a table, it would resemble a scrap of lace. I am a lover of history . . . [but] history has one flaw. It is a subjective art, no less so than poetry or music. . . . The historian writes a truth. The memoirist writes a truth. The novelist writes a truth. And so on. My mother, we both know, wrote a truth in The 19th Wife– a truth that corresponded to her memory and desires. It is not the truth, certainly not. But a truth, yes . . . Her book is a fact. It remains so, even if it is snowflaked with holes.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“I trust you have seen the ocean. If you have, then you have witnessed the divine. How barren the ground is in comparison! If I could count the hours I have spent staring out at it! And yet those hours never feel lost. I cannot imagine how else I could refill them were I given a second chance.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Isn't it interesting what a stranger can offer? A little wisdom, a little mercy, a little love.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Do you know what I miss most about Rosemary? Simply knowing she was there.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“I suppose my greatest disappointment has been realizing my father, like Joseph and Brigham before him, tried to shroud his passions in the mantle of religion. He used God to defend his adultery. --- Ann Eliza Young, page 253”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“There is nothing more alarming to a boy than seeing a mother, or a father, buckling. It says to him that all will not be well. The boy does not know this, but he senses it, as a dog senses it, as a dog sense his master's true state of mind. (Lorenzo Dee)”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“I, of course, cherish my freedom, but I shall never want my freedom to restrict the freedom of another. In that case then I am not truly free, and none of us is truly free.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“You will loose everything"
"I already have.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Isn't a gay Mormon like an oxymoron?'
'Do I look like an oxymoron to you?'
'An oxymormon.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“The agony of martyrdom is almost too much to bear. In the early hours, when the loss is fresh, there is no comfort in knowing Glory will live on. We speak of the martyrs in History but we cannot know the actual pain they suffered in their final living hours. They enter the realm of the mythic, but we must never forget these were men like ourselves. When their flesh is torn, they cry out. They suffer as you or I would suffer, although more bravely. Remember Christ. Although I am now an enemy to Joseph's legacy, I shudder when recalling his pain.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Although I cannot prove this scenario, I know it—and isn’t that the ultimate definition of faith? Knowing what we can’t know. Seeing what isn’t there.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Rage is a candle, it will always burn out.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“I write not for sensation, but for Truth. I leave judgement to the hearts of my good Readers everywhere.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many and never easy to explain”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Upon the exposure of his bribery, it is reported he said, “I should have paid more.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“I wish I could claim I faced my first day of apostasy with courage and certainty. Yet in truth, I had never felt more afraid.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Sometimes when you’re driving down a back road in Utah, you think if there is a God, then he probably had something to do with all of this. It’s just that fucking beautiful.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“What do I consider myself now? A man attempting to be good. In this endeavor I have no use for church and steeple. If another man does, I only wish he finds what he needs.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“My duty, I know, is to lead. I cannot offer an array of options. I must offer a long but narrow path to Salvation, and guide the Saints down it. Were that path wide and varied, it would lead nowhere; and I will then have failed both God and man.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Under what circumstances does such outrage thrive? The territory of Utah, glorious as it may be, spiked by granite peaks and red jasper rocks, cut by echoing canyons and ravines, spread upon a wide basin of gamma grass and wandering streams, this land of blowing snow and sand, of iron, copper, and the great salten sea.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men. —The Book of Mormon, translated by JOSEPH SMITH,”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Indeed, there are some mysteries that must exist without answer. In the end we must accept them for what they are: complex and many-sided, ornamented with clues and theories, yet ultimately unknowable—like life itself.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“You say in your letter the historian writes the truth. Forgive me, I must disagree. The historian writes a truth. The memoirist writes a truth. The novelist writes a truth. And so on.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Dear Reader, let me tell you this: Love and trust are Siamese twins, as conjoined as Chang and Eng.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“I’ve heard them say the heart’s bottomless but I don’t agree. I love my boys and girls but when my mind is clear I have to admit I wish I could give out more love.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“the trail, at infrequent posts, the weary Saints would”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife

“Love and trust are Siamese twins, as conjoined as Chang and Eng.”
― David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife