Our Souls at Night Quotes

“Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“I do love this physical world. I love this physical life with you. And the air and the country. The backyard, the gravel in the back alley. The grass. The cool nights. Lying in bed talking with you in the dark.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Who would have thought at this time in our lives that we’d still have something like this. That it turns out we’re not finished with changes and excitements. And not all dried up in body and spirit.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“I made up my mind I’m not going to pay attention to what people think. I’ve done that too long—all my life. I’m not going to live that way anymore.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“I just want to live simply and pay attention to what's happening each day.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“You have been good for me. What more could anyone ask for? I’m a better person than I was before we got together. That’s your doing.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“But we didn’t know anything in our twenties when we were first married. It was all just instinct and the patterns we’d grown up with.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Who would have thought at this time in our lives that we’d still have something like this.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“So life hasn't turned out right for either of us, not the way we expected,' he said.
'Except it feels good now, at this moment.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“You are still in love with her. No. But I think I'm in love a little with the memory of her.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Oh I feel better already talking with you here next to me.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“You can't fix things, can you, Louis said. We always want to. But we can't.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Not like I was. I’ve come to believe in some kind of afterlife. A return to our true selves, a spirit self. We’re just in this physical body till we go back to spirit.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Where are you?
You mean where in the house?
Are you in your bedroom?
Yes, I've been reading. Is this some kind of phone sex?
It's just two old people talking in the dark, Addie said.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Sins of omission, Louis said.
You don’t believe in sins.
I believe there are failures of character, like I said before. That’s a sin.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“people do. But, Daddy, it’s not right. I didn’t know you even cared for Addie Moore. Or even knew her that well. You’re right. I didn’t. But that’s the main point of this being a good time. Getting to know somebody well at this age. And finding out you like her and discovering you’re not just all dried up after all. It just seems embarrassing. To whom? It’s not to me. But people know about you. Of course they do. And I don’t give a damn. Who told you? It must’ve been one of your tightass friends in town here. It was Linda Rogers. She would. Well, she thought I should know. And now you do.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Our Souls at Night open onto larger insights about getting older?”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“This boy needs a dog.
What makes you say that?
He needs someone or something to play with besides his phone and an old man and an old woman doddering around.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Mi chiedevo se ti andrebbe qualche volta di venire a dormire da me." "Cosa? In che senso?" "Nel senso che siamo tutti e due soli. Ce ne stiamo per conto nostro da troppo tempo. Da anni. Io mi sento sola. Penso che anche tu lo sia. Mi chiedevo se ti andrebbe di venire a dormire da me, la notte. E parlare. Sto parlando di attraversare la notte insieme. Le notti sono la cosa peggiore, non trovi?”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“You can't fix things, can you, Louis said.
We always want to. But we can't.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“I believe there are failures of character, like I said before. That’s a sin.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“quit trying to fix things and we settled into our long polite and quiet life.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Addie and Louis sat down in front. She had arranged the funeral and told the minister about Ruth. He hadn't known her at all. She had stopped going to any church because of her feeling about orthodoxy and the childish ways in which churches talked and thought about God.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“I got up and left the house and drove out in the country, the stars were all shining and there were the farmlights and yardlights all looking blue in the dark. Everything looking normal, except nothing was normal anymore, everything was at some kind of cliff’s edge, and late that night I came back.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Addie was lying under a cotton sheet, and then he turned toward her and without his knowing she had drawn the sheet back and was lying naked on the bed in the low light of the bedside lamp. He stood looking at her. Don’t stand there, she said. You make me nervous. Don’t be, he said. You look lovely. I’m too heavy around the hips and stomach. This old body. I’m an old woman now. Well, old woman Moore. You’ve won me completely. You’re just right. You’re how you’re supposed to look. You’re not supposed to be some thirteen-year-old girl without any breasts and hips.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“Sins of omission, Louis said. You don’t believe in sins. I believe there are failures of character, like I said before. That’s a sin.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“È sempre un incontro alla cieca tra due persone che mettono in scena vecchie idee e sogni e impressioni sbagliate.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“I’ve come to believe in some kind of afterlife. A return to our true selves, a spirit self. We’re”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night

“It just seems embarrassing. To whom? It’s not to me. But people know about you. Of course they do. And I don’t give a damn.”
― Kent Haruf, Our Souls at Night