The Letter Keeper Quotes

“I'm no expert, but in my limited experience, women aren't born women. They start out as girls. And every girl, from the moment they can dream, imagines the rescue. The knight. The castle. Life in a fairy tale. If you don't believe me, watch boys and girls on a playground. No one teaches us to do this. The kid in us actually believes in things that are too good to be true. Before life convinces us we can't and they're not.

Then life kicks in. Boys become men. Girls become women. For any number of reasons we are wounded and, sadly, wounded people wound people. So many of us grow into doubting, hopeless, callous adults protecting hardened hearts. Medicating the pain. Life isn't what we imagined. Nor are we. And we didn't start out trying to get there. Far from it. But it's who we've become. One day we turn around, and what we once dreamed or hoped is a distant echo. We've forgotten what it sounded like. Once pure and unadulterated, the voice of hope is now muted by all the stuff we've crammed on top of it. And we're okay with that. For some illogical reason, we stand atop the mine shaft of ourselves, shoving stuff into the pipe that is us, telling our very soul, 'Shut up. Not another word.' Why? Because the cry of our heart hurts when unanswered. And the longer it remains unanswered, the deeper the hurt. In self-protection we inhale resignation and exhale indifference.

[Murphy Shepherd]”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“If my life experience had taught me anything, it's this: the wounds of the past carry a lot of weight when it comes to walking into one's future, and if anything can rob you of now, it's yesterday. We are really good at taking the pain of our past and projecting it into our future because it's what we know, and yet our past has almost nothing to do with our future other than being connected by seconds. That's it. So we face a choice. Either shine a light on yesterday and expose it, or forfeit the joy of now and the hope of tomorrow. I realize this is easier said than done, but left untreated, experiential pain becomes a fortress in our gut that houses a lie spoken by fear. And behind that fear is an idol of our own making. One we carve by hand when we, as self-made people, worship our own creator: us. As if we can do anything to protect ourselves. Maybe it's articulated in the statement, 'I'll let you in, but only so far. And under no circumstances will I let you down there. That's the basement. That's off limits. We don't go there.' We raise a finger. 'Touch that doorknob and I'm gone.'

This whole thing is a cyclical downward spiral. We can't protect us. Fear would suggest we can, but fear is a liar. Always has been.

[Murphy Shepherd]”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“While a deep need in each of us is to know and be known, there is one deeper. One that undergirds everything else. It's the stuff of us. Out of it, we breathe, or not. We wander the earth like shipwrecked castaways, intersecting other island dwellers, and when we meet them, we hold ourselves out in offering and grant them a chance to accept or reject us. With our souls held together with twine and tape and glue, we bounce from rejection to rejection until we find the one who accepts us.

This is the thirst of the human soul, and only one thing satisfies it: to be accepted in the knowing.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“Stripped bare, the human soul has one real desire: to know and be known.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“There's a thing that happens when we start to believe the lies about ourselves, and when we think other people believe them too. Those lies become our prison. The bars we see through. They hold us captive. It's like some giant hand holding our head beneath the surface of the water, Every few minutes it'll let us up, only to sink us farther the next go-round. A vicious cycle. In my experience, only one thing on planet earth breaks the power of that hand and flings open wide the prison doors....And until you speak it [the truth] with your mouth, out loud, you're bound.

[Murphy Shepherd]”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“But words are like bullets. Once they exit the barrel, it’s impossible to bring them back.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“If that summer taught me anything, it was this: girls need their father. Period. And I couldn’t really tell you why other than it’s the father who tells them who they are. Until he does, they’re just floating in the earth like that tooth. Buried in some trash mound. Waiting to be discovered by somebody with a shovel who won’t crack it or crush it. Last”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“While a deep need in each of us is to know and be known, there is one deeper. One that undergirds everything else. It's the stuff of us. Out of it, we breathe, or not. We wander the earth like shipwrecked castaways, intersecting other island dwellers, and when we meet them, we hold ourselves out in offering and grant them a chance to accept or reject us. With our souls held together with twine and tape and glue, we bounce from rejection to rejection until we find the one who accepts us.

This is the thirst of the human soul, and only one thing satisfies it: to be accepted in the knowing.

[Murphy Shepherd]”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“...girls need their father. Period. And I couldn’t really tell you why other than it’s the father who tells them who they are. Until he does, they’re just floating in the earth like that tooth. Buried in some trash mound. Waiting to be discovered by somebody with a shovel who won’t crack it or crush it.

[Murphy Shepherd]”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“while evil can inflict wounds and lay claim to the territory of the human soul, it is a squatter. A trespasser. It has no legal deed. And it has no defense against love. It can’t touch it. Not now. Not ever. No weapon ever fashioned by man can defeat it, but what we pour from our hearts shatters it on the rocks of its own making.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“That’s it. So we face a choice. Either shine a light on yesterday and expose it, or forfeit the joy of now and the hope of tomorrow.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“One day we turn around, and what we once dreamed or hoped is a distant echo. We’ve forgotten what it sounded like. Once pure and unadulterated, the voice of hope is now muted by all the stuff we’ve crammed on top of it.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“every girl, from the moment they can dream, imagines the rescue. The knight. The castle. Life in a fairy tale. If you don’t believe me, watch boys and girls on a playground. No one teaches us to do this. The kid in us actually believes in things that are too good to be true. Before life convinces us we can’t and they’re not.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“the cry of our heart hurts when unanswered. And the longer it remains unanswered, the deeper the hurt. In self-protection we inhale resignation and exhale indifference.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“You can mute it, wound it, stab it, shoot it, and shove it in the corner, but no matter what you do or how hard you try, you can’t kill it. Sooner or later, some part of you is going to look at that mysterious shape in the corner and compare it to the wound oozing in your chest, and you’ll think to yourself, I wonder if that’ll fill the hole. And when it clicks perfectly into place, you wonder how it knew. How did that one thing fit the hole nothing could ever fill? Too jagged. And yet it did. Custom fit. That thing is hope.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“Where does that evil come from? How dark”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“What makes one man think he can enslave another?”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“I’ll never understand what happens in a man, or sometimes a woman—although it’s mostly men—to cause them to think they have the right to own another human. To force another member of the human race, made in the image of God, to do what they don’t want to and wouldn’t in ten million years. All for money.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“left untreated, experiential pain becomes a fortress in our gut that houses a lie spoken by fear.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“We wander the earth like shipwrecked castaways, intersecting other island dwellers, and when we meet them, we hold ourselves out in offering and grant them a chance to accept or reject us. With our souls held together with twine and tape and glue, we bounce from rejection to rejection until we find the one who accepts us.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“trauma one man can inflict upon another is that committed against the human soul. And for those who inflict it, there is a special place in hell.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“I’ve been trying to name the thing that keeps me climbing up this impossible mountain day after day.” “And?” “I think it’s hope.” “What makes you say that?” “You can mute it, wound it, stab it, shoot it, and shove it in the corner, but no matter what you do or how hard you try, you can’t kill it. Sooner or later, some part of you is going to look at that mysterious shape in the corner and compare it to the wound oozing in your chest, and you’ll think to yourself, I wonder if that’ll fill the hole. And when it clicks perfectly into place, you wonder how it knew. How did that one thing fit the hole nothing could ever fill? Too jagged. And yet it did. Custom fit. That thing is hope.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“down there. Something unkillable in the darkness. Maybe we’re all born with that. Maybe it’s part of being this thing we call human. The ache for another. The desire to reach into the night and find someone’s hand reaching back.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“What do I do with the pain?”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“better rewriter than writer. So just get it on paper. Sounds gross but just vomit it out. You can edit later. But you can’t edit what’s not there. Third, honesty trumps intelligence. So tell the truth and don’t use words you don’t understand. Readers can spot a fake a mile away.” She laughed. “Don’t worry.” “Last, you are the only you on planet earth. Out of seven billion people, you’re the only one who sounds like Casey. No one else has your voice. So find it and use it.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“I have a few simple rules. Maybe they’ll work for you. First, books don’t write themselves. Every day we show up to a white page. Which means you’ve got to put in the time. If your butt is not in the seat, then you’re probably more enamored with being called a writer than actually being one. There’s a difference. Second, I sweat my books more than write them, and I’m a”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“sold into trafficking by foster parents before puberty. While she still believed the tooth fairy was real.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“For we alone are the keepers of the letters that set us free.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“immeasurable power of our words.”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper

“they walk the hurting from broken to not. From unable to breathe to laughing. From sickness of the soul to tears dripping off the corners of a smile. From lost to known and accepted in the knowing. This is the matchless and”
― Charles Martin, The Letter Keeper