Ragged Company Quotes

“I gave them nothing back because all I knew was the vast amount they had taken from me, robbed me of, cheated me out of, all in the name of a God whose son bore the long hair none of us were allowed to wear any more.”
― Richard Wagamese, Ragged Company

“Time doesn’t exist. Pardon me? Time. It doesn’t exist. Did you know that? No. Sometimes it seems like it’s all that’s real. Like time is the only thing we have to keep things together. Well, it’s not. It’s not because it was a creation of our imagination when we believed we needed something to pin our lives on, some way to measure progress, some way to try to control change. Funny how we get so big in our britches sometimes, isn’t it? Yes. It is. But tell me more about this idea. Well, if time was real, it would leave some residue behind. Something tangible, some evidence of its passing. But it’s invisible, so there’s no residue. All there is, is now, this moment, this instance, this time. Then it’s gone. Like a firefly in the night. Winking out, becoming invisible again. I see that. But where does it go? Inside us. Time disappears inside us. It becomes real through memory, recollection, and feeling. Then, only then, can it last forever. When it becomes a part of us, a part of our spirit on its never-ending journey. Journey to where? To completion. You’re losing me. Don’t worry. You’ll come to understand it all too. When? In time.”
― Richard Wagamese, Ragged Company: A Novel

“We become eternal by being held in memory's loving arms.”
― Richard Wagamese, Ragged Company

“You live on concrete long enough, you pick up the nature of it: cold, hard, and predictable. It’s called survival”
― Richard Wagamese, Ragged Company: A Novel

“There's times when you have to keep a deep knowing to yourself so others around you can find the teachings in a thing. Those of us who can see know that, but the hard part is letting others go through it. While it hurts to watch them deal with hurt, you know that you still have to let them, that it's a gift, that it's a teaching way.”
― Richard Wagamese, Ragged Company

“There are distances you can feel. They say that the middle of the ocean and any spot in space are similar. They say that the view is the same in all directions. Isotropic. Everywhere that you look is water, horizon, and sky, or else stars, planets, and space. I knew then (…) that the world becomes an isotropic place when pain and sorrow and hurt define the topography of things. It’s all you can see. Everywhere you look.”
― Richard Wagamese, Ragged Company

“Our secrets are our greatest possessions. We store them like pocket treasures, reassured by their weight, their heft, and the knowledge that though they may be smoothed by time, they bear the same stories, the same unrelenting hold, the timeless chiaroscuro they were born in. I had no knowledge of how they might alter with exposure to light.”
― Richard Wagamese, Ragged Company: A Novel