Pax Quotes

“Because I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing. That is peace.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“The plain truth can be the hardest thing to see when it's about yourself. If you don't want to know the truth, you'll do anything to disguise it.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Sometimes the apple rolls very far from the tree.”
― Sara Pennypacker , Pax

“Oh, let me tell you, feelings are all dangerous. Love, hope... Ha! Hope! You talk about dangerous, eh? No, you can't avoid any of them. We all own a beast called anger. It can serve us: many good things come out of anger at bad things; many unjust things are made just. But first we all have to figure out how to civilize it.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“no matter how bad things got, we could always make ourselves new again.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“We all own a beast called anger. It can serve us: many good things come of anger at bad things; many unjust things are made just. But first we all have to figure out how to civilize it.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“So which is it? You going back for your home or for your pet? They're the same thing, Peter said, the answer sudden and sure, although a surprise to him.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“It's a Buddhist concept. Nonduality. It's about oneness, about how things that seem to be separate are really connected to one another. There are no separations...This is not just a piece of wood. This is also the clouds that brought the rain that watered the tree, and the birds that nested in it and the squirrels that fed on its nuts. It is also the food my grandparents fed me that made me strong enough to cut the tree, and it's the steel in the axe I used. And it's how you know your fox, which allowed you to carve him yesterday. And it's the story you will tell your children when you give this to them. All these things are separate but also one, inseparable. Do you see?”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“You going back for your home or for your pet?” “They’re the same thing,”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Do you think anyone in the history of this world ever set out to fight for the wrong side?”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Oneness is always growing in the world, boy. Two but not two. It's always there, connecting its roots, humming. I can't be part of it--that's the price I pay for taking myself away. But you can be. You can vibrate with its heartbeat. You may be on your own. But you won't be alone.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“but distrust is no match for kindness administered consistently and unmeasured, especially in creatures new to the world.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“It always seemed like a snake to him, his anxiety. Waiting just out of sight, ready to slither up his spine, hissing its familiar taunt: “You aren’t where you should be. Something bad is going to happen because you aren’t where you should be.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Peter shifted his backpack and crutches. He took a step toward the bus. Then he turned back. "I'm family?"
"That's as true a thing as I've ever known. Now get on that bus.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“It was a valuable thing, he suddenly realized, to have someone you could count on for honesty.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“You may be on your own. But you won't be alone.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“If you don’t want to know the truth, you’ll do anything to disguise it.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“This war that is coming—are you sure it will harm all in its path? Even the youth? Everything. It will destroy everything. Pax”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“The new joy of speed, the urgency of coming night, the hope of reunion with his boy – these things transformed him into something that shot like liquid fire between the trees. Something gravity couldn't touched. Pax could have run forever.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“what if he was like his father, with that threatening kind of anger, the kind that was always simmering, the kind that could boil over at any time and hurt everyone in the way? The apologies afterward never healed the damage.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Vola: So which is it? You going back for your home or for your pet?
Peter: They're the same thing.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Peanut butter happened?”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“It hung between grief and yearning, and it welled from a deep ache for something that Pax could never divine.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“She said it meant that no matter how bad things got, we could always make ourselves new again.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“It is now. But a trip like this? You will find something to fill it with. A truth of your own, that you discover on your own.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Pax? That’s his name? It means ‘peace,’ you know.” Peter knew that—lots of people had told him.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“[A] baseball field was the only place where he felt he was exactly where he was born to be.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“Just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“And why didn't anyone count those things? "People should tell the truth about what war costs," Vola had said.
Weren't those things the costs of war, too?”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax

“I have twenty acres of trees to care for. And I’m a wood-carver. You thought they were weapons?” Peter”
― Sara Pennypacker, Pax