The Hummingbird Quotes

“We all have times when life intervenes and we get little done. But when our days are numbered, it feels like a kind of thievery. If there is ever a chapter in life with no time to waste, it is the last one.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“How old am I again?"
"You are seventy-eight, Professor."
He wagged his head. "How in the hell did that happen?"
"That you've lived so many years?"
"That they passed so quickly. As brief as lighting.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“Treatment of returning soldiers throughout history. Did you know one-third of the Union dead in the Civil War were buried before the bodies had been identified? Or that black soldiers in the south, coming home from World War I, were beaten for wearing uniforms in public? And now there are tens of thousands of guys like me just waiting, you know, standing in line for help? We trusted our country, we fought for it, and now it is blowing us off. It happens in every war, is the point. Soldiers are mistreated when they come home. Joel said everyone complains about people spitting on Vietnam vets, but who knows? Maybe that was more honest.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“I felt his marital commitment more in that moment than I ever had before. It wasn't noisy or passionate. It was quiet, and patient, and slowly piecing itself back together.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“But I believe the measure of a vow does not lie in saying it, or upholding it when things are easy. The power of a promise is proven in times of difficulty, when keeping that pledge is hard. My husband was giving me ample opportunity to prove the strength of my vows.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“All dead people are the same. No two living people are.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“Must we die? Must everyone at last die? Yes, everyone.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“I have seen people tell patients to keep fighting—typically sons speaking to fathers—when clearly all the exhausted patriarch wants to do is rest. I bide my time, then point out how hard the patient has fought already, and ask them to consider giving him permission to go. Sometimes the people listen, and the patient dies at peace. Sometimes they don’t listen, and the patient dies anyway. Nature will have her way.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird