A Feather on the Water Quotes

“If only . . . They had to be two of the saddest words in the English language.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Greek”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Do you still pray?” The directness of his question caught her by surprise. There had been many times—especially since coming to Germany—when she had shot silent, fervent requests like arrows into the sky. Why? She couldn’t answer that. “I suppose I do, in a way,” she murmured. “God hears those prayers.” “Even from people who don’t know what they believe?” “You believe in love, don’t you? You spend all day, every day, caring for people in need. You didn’t have to take that path—you chose to. And that kind of love is the essence of what God is.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“I just don’t understand why President Truman won’t let them in.” Martha’s eyes narrowed as she watched more cans fall like dominoes. “America is a nation of displaced people. How can you close a border that’s been open to the whole world for hundreds of years?”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Martha tried to imagine how she would feel if America were to be divided up in this way, if she were told that New York and every state on the East Coast were suddenly out of bounds. How would she react to being told that, instead, she could become an orange farmer in Mexico?”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“What shall we drink to this time?” Martha put her hand over the rim. She was already starting to feel a bit woozy. “To . . . life!” Kitty raised her glass. “To life!” Delphine clinked her glass against each of the others. “A year ago, I couldn’t have drunk a toast to that. There seemed no point in going on living.” She took a sip of her drink. “It’s not the same life—but it’s a meaningful life. Thank you both, for helping me get there.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“The Greek word in the Bible—aphiemi—means ‘to set free.’ When I heard that, I suddenly grasped what it was all about: forgiving is about freedom. It’s not just about pardoning the wrongdoer—it’s about releasing yourself from the power of what they did to you. Forgiving someone sets you free.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“It’s funny,” she said. “The camp is the first place I’ve ever really felt I fitted in. I think it’s because in Britain, I was living in a country where it seemed like everyone belonged except me. But at Seidenmühle I’m living alongside people like myself—people in a land that’s not their own.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Why didn’t she tell us before?” Martha said, as she unlocked the door of the office. “How could she have lived with it all this time, not saying anything?” “For the same reason as me, I suppose,” Kitty said. “If no one knows, they can’t remind you of it. Putting it into words makes it . . . real.” “But bottling it up—that’s just as hard, isn’t it?” “Yes, but telling someone doesn’t take away what you feel.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Kitty longed to go to Vienna herself. It would be grim, seeing the places she had known and loved. The search for news would be daunting and could well be fruitless. But it would be better than this endless not-knowing.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“She thought of the newspaper image still tucked away in her handbag, of the frightened-looking woman with a baby in her arms and another child clinging to her skirt. How could anyone turn their back on someone in such dire need?”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“handkerchief. This had”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“You believe in love, don’t you? You spend all day, every day, caring for people in need. You didn’t have to take that path—you chose to. And that kind of love is the essence of what God is.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“It took a long time for the millions of people displaced by WWII to find new homes. There were still camps operating in Germany in the 1950s. The last one closed in 1959, fourteen years after the fighting had ended.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Steel rods hung like stalactites from the nonexistent roofs of houses; rusty girders were thrusting like bones”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“When I heard that, I suddenly grasped what it was all about: forgiving is about freedom. It’s not just about pardoning the wrongdoer—it’s about releasing yourself from the power of what they did to you. Forgiving someone sets you free.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“America is a nation of displaced people. How can you close a border that’s been open to the whole world for hundreds of years?”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“when we suffer, he suffers with us. He didn’t create the evil that was done here. He gave us free will—the choice to love and nurture or to hate and destroy one another. Mankind has been getting it wrong since the dawn of time.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“believe in a God who, twice a day, washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world. He makes every mark disappear—from the gaping hole dug by a spade to the footprints left by a gull.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“the riches of the mind do not rust.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Forgiving someone sets you free.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“forgiving is about freedom. It’s not just about pardoning the wrongdoer—it’s about releasing yourself from the power of what they did to you.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Like the feather she’d seen floating along the river the day he left her, he’d disappeared from view, entered choppy water, and been pulled under. But he had emerged, bedraggled but intact, farther downstream.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“It’s all too easy to lose your faith if you’re trying to practice it alone. It’s like a coal falling out of the fire: it soon goes cold.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“This was the path she had chosen. She couldn’t fight against the direction it had taken. Accepting this was a kind of surrender. But it was the only way to find peace.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“It’s a strange word, forgiveness,” he said. “I never really understood it until I studied Greek at the seminary. The Greek word in the Bible—aphiemi—means ‘to set free.’ When I heard that, I suddenly grasped what it was all about: forgiving is about freedom. It’s not just about pardoning the wrongdoer—it’s about releasing yourself from the power of what they did to you. Forgiving someone sets you free.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“The House at Mermaid’s Cove.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“it was all about: forgiving is about freedom. It’s not just about pardoning the wrongdoer—it’s about releasing yourself from the power of what they did to you. Forgiving someone sets you free.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“forgiving is about freedom. It’s not just about pardoning the wrongdoer—it’s about releasing yourself from the power of what they did to you. Forgiving someone sets you free.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“Like the feather she’d seen floating along the river the day he left her, he’d disappeared from view, entered choppy water, and been pulled under. But he had emerged, bedraggled but intact, farther downstream. There would be more turbulence ahead—that much was certain. But now they would face it together.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water