A Prayer for the Dying Quotes

“If all of this has taught you anything, it's that hope is easier to get rid of than sorrow.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“There's nothing to do. You've been in the business long enough to understand grief. That's the awful thing: there is nothing to do but go on. You don't want to, you don't want to leave the loved one behind, but you do. Death's taught you that much at least.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“Lately it seems there are mysteries everywhere, as if you've only just opened your eyes.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“Grief breaks down all but the crazy; it's a secret of your profession, one people don't want to know.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“And even you, then, will wonder how you have such hope, and marvel at how impossible it is to stop the heart from reaching out into the whole world.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“In Heaven you forget everything. In Hell they make you remember.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“You're proud of your ability to both believe and question everything. Secretly you think everyone does, but at some point they give in, surrender to the comfort of certainty. It's too much trouble, this endless jousting of belief and doubt, too tiring. Finally you suppose it will break you, yet strangely it's the only thing that keeps you going - though, true, at times you feel unbalanced, even somewhat mad.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“Getting sentimental," you say, but who are you fooling, you've always been.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“It frightens you how practical you can be, how cold, even with your own.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“It's just a hard moment for him, a low point, not some soul-shaking crisis; you know those aren't sudden or public, they take years, worming inside you like a disease.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“It doesn't seem enough, and as he starts them off, you want to call after him, tell him how you too question the ways of faith, the injustice, the never-ending losses, that it stuns you too, that you still grieve for Mrs. Goetz and Arnie and Eric Soderholm just as their families do, though everyone else seems to have forgotten. Lydia Flynn, the tramp behind Meyer's, the men in the swamps of Kentucky. If a sparrow fall, you want to say, it is not lost. I will remember. We are all saved.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“Worry rolls inside you like a wheel.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“You're unsure what you think of him, a fact you pride yourself on. It defines you, this willingness to hear all sides, love everyone. You've stopped believing in evil. Is that a sin? You know what your mother would say, but justice needs to be fair-handed, the dead deserve your compassion. It's your job to understand, to forgive, not simply your custom.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“Faith will always save you. It's a question, really, and you think the answer could make a good sermon. When won't faith save you?
When you believe too much in this world. In yourself. In anything but God.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“You want to tell him about the conversations they have, the arguments over things long forgotten. You want to impress on him how many stories everyone has within them, how much each death diminishes Friendship, especially with the young people leaving. But again, he's done enough. And he's young, you don't expect him to understand.”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying

“He means people who let their faith take the place of their reason, people who believe this world is just a prelude to another, more glorious life. He means people like you. *”
― Stewart O'Nan, A Prayer for the Dying