Virgil Wander Quotes

“Memory’s oldest trick is convincing us of its accuracy.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“This was maybe best of all. I never once expected to be someone's nice surprise.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“A person never knows what is next--I don't anyway. The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“I loved that kite, that cinnamon hound. We were old friends. I had soared and laughed with that kite. It got me out on the perimeter. I felt I had failed it somehow, and rune too, even though he would've offered the string to Leer, just as I had. Thinking it over I became a bit less angry, and more proud of the kite itself: it had refused to be flown by Leer one moment longer. It broke the line and caught the next gust out of town. A perilous beautiful move, choosing to throw yourself at the future, even if it means one day coming down in the sea.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“The evidence of my life lay before me, and I was unconvinced.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“It’s possible to perceive what is coming and still be dumbfounded when it happens.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“What makes a Samaritan good is the possibility of the lunge.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Your tribe is always bigger than you think.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“At first I thought common nouns were hardest hit, coffee and doorway and so on, but it soon became clear that the missing were mostly adjectives.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“My sister comes on like a box of nails, but her devotion to the mythic is profound.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“It’s never been hard for me to fall in love, a quality that has yet to simplify one single day of my life.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“They came one at a time or in shy small groups. I remember when sea-kindly showed up, a sentimental favorite, followed by desiccated and massive. Brusque appeared all by itself, which seemed apt; merry and boisterous arrived together. This would be a good time to ask for your patience if I use an adjective too many now and again—even now, some years on, they’re still returning. I’m just so glad to see them.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“trying to keep him from sinking into the marsh of incurious disapproval that swallows so many ancients.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Why am I still surprised when it turns out there is more to the story?”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all.

Virgil Wander”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Speculators make me nervous,” I managed to say in a slow soggy tone. “What needless suspicion,” he said. “To speculate is to imagine. To wonder.” At least I think that’s what he said, before a shape sank past in my murky sight—a watery shape, a descending turtle—and then I knew where I seemed to be, in my honest old Pontiac, ninety feet deep. There sure enough was the ovoid speedometer, there my drifting blue hand. A bit of my brain believed I was dead, believed in the peace, knew the wavery coffee shop was only the weak invention it turns out a corpse can summon. Relief rinsed through me, followed by a chiding phrase from the past—fight the good fight. Someone important had said that. Had I fought well? I didn’t know, but what did it matter? The fight appeared to be over. Then a merry laugh punctured the shadows.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“The man on the water stood forty yards out.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“I experienced an unspooling sense of freedom—genuine antagonism is something I’ve rarely encountered, and it felt good to respond with honesty instead of obsequious scraping.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“My weary old ground was broken and watered, and what sprang up was a generalized longing.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“His sadness seemed complete. It had left him nothing, no proper enjoyment, no Saturday mornings. Sadness wore him like a tailored suit.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Ann rolled her eyes. She had a marvelous eye roll, refined through long discipline, precise as acupuncture.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“One of the things Rune admired about Lucy was her impractical curiosity. She was writing notes in the margins.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Although saying this, I realize it may have been illusory. Memory’s oldest trick is convincing us of its accuracy.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“I made a fist and held it out. It didn't look like much—not like a fist anyone would count on for protection. If war came seeking a person I loved, that undernourished fist was not going to be enough. I would have to put my whole body in the way”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“I wanted to hear about many small things, the smaller the better. I wanted to tell her small things in return.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“There is nothing wrong with being kissed on the cheek by a sweet round woman in a café after you have nearly died.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“It was wonderful and gauzy, going to sleep that way, like drifting in a small boat over a rippling sea.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“she had a name made to be embroidered on bowling shirts.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“After the derailment I wondered obsessively about the great whatever. Much seemed to ride on the character of the whatever, including the degree and tenacity of my guilt in the matter. But miles pass, years climb up your shoulders. My insistence on Mom's and Dad's joyous afterlife gradually dimmed.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander