The Ferryman Quotes

“There is power in a name. It is through names that we bring all things into this world, and when they leave, it is names we carry with us, so they are never truly gone.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“It is within this space that revelations come, and mine is this: there’s only one thing I can do to help my father now, something I have never done before. I kiss him on the forehead. “I love you,” I tell him.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Yet something nagged at me. It is impossible, of course, to completely know another person; we are, in the end, prisoners of our own minds.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Nevertheless, I stabbed him.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“I will give you childhood, so that you might know innocence. Age, so you will know the prize of youth. Children, so that you will care for the future. Toil, so that you will know the value of a day. The body’s failings, so that you will know its worth. Death, so that you will cherish the bittersweet beauty of life.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“and the thought came to me then that who we are to one another isn’t so easy to categorize after all: that fathers can be sons, and lovers friends, and daughters mothers, and that such words as these tell only half the story, maybe not even half.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“She did not recall the words, only the idea: that loss was love’s accounting, its unit of measure, as a foot was made of inches, a yard was made of feet.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“The law does not require that to be proved which is apparent to the court.’ ”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“The mind works wondrously; it is capable of astonishing feats. It is the only machine in nature capable of thinking one thing while knowing its opposite.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“And right there you have it. That’s the principle behind consciousness integration. A world without a living intelligence behind it—a soul, in other words—isn’t actually a world at all. It’s merely a place. The result is the emptiness and despair experienced by our test subjects. Austen’s novel feels alive because it is alive, just as the world that you and I profess to live in is alive. It’s made by a mind, not a machine, and that mind is what gives it the sense of deep order and purpose. You may not see it, but you can sense its presence, and that’s what makes life not merely endurable but also worth living.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“You know a lot of things. You believe almost nothing.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“The funny thing is, and speaking in hindsight, I had come to feel a certain fondness for the man. He was infuriating, yes, but his amiable manner made it impossible to dislike him. One rarely meets a person of such geniality, and I genuinely wished him no further ill.
Nevertheless, I stabbed him.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Proctor realized what he’s seeing: a memory in the making, of the night when her father handed her the tiller and put her in charge. The though delights him, though not without an underlying twinge of melancholy: his little girl is growing up so fast. The day will come when she’ll leave him, leave both of them, behind; friends, boys, new experiences, all will take the stage until, one day, he’ll look up to find her gone, off with a family of her own. But isn’t that also something to look forward to? To watch his daughter, whom, not so long ago, he held in the palm of a single hand, step into the flow of life? It’s all very complex, and it seems to him that within this complexity lies the true essence of loving a child: a joy so intense that it can feel like sadness.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“The mind works wondrously; it is capable of astonishing feats. It is the only machine in nature capable of thinking one thing while knowing its opposite. The bright, busy surface of life—that is the key. How easily it distracts us, like a magician who waves a wand with one hand while, with the other, he plucks a rabbit from his vest. Here is the golden morning, we say; here is the beautiful sea. Here is my beautiful home, my adoring wife, my morning cup of coffee, and my refreshing daybreak swim. We look no deeper into things because we do not desire this; neither are we meant to. That is the design of the world, to trick us into believing it is one thing, when it’s entirely another. I ask again: Did I know? Of course I did. Of course I fucking knew.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Why do certain arbitrary images stay with us, branded upon the walls of memory, while others sink forever into time’s abyss?”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“War, pestilence, famine, environmental collapse; vast migrations and fanaticism of every stripe; a world de-civilized as the earth’s peoples, sworn to competing gods, turned upon one another:”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“collapses in a cascade of confusion.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Which only goes to show that people are more complicated than they let on, and that even tragedy (sometimes only tragedy) can open the door to who we really are.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“It is the most beautiful star in the history of stars, which is the history of everything.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“the true essence of loving a child: a joy so intense that it can feel like sadness.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“that it was and always would be impossible to know what was dream and what was not; that all creation was boxes within boxes within boxes, each the dream of a different god.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“We look no deeper into things because we do not desire this; neither are we meant to. That is the design of the world, to trick us into believing it is one thing, when it’s entirely another.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Proctor realizes what he’s seeing: a memory in the making, of the night when her father handed her the tiller and put her in charge. The thought delights him, though not without an underlying twinge of melancholy: his little girl is growing up so fast. The day will come when she’ll leave him, leave both of them, behind; friends, boys, new experiences, all will take the stage until, one day, he’ll look up to find her gone, off with a family of her own. But isn’t that also something to look forward to? To watch his daughter, whom, not so long ago, he held in the palm of a single hand, step into the flow of life? It’s all very complex, and it seems to him that within this complexity lies the true essence of loving a child: a joy so intense that it can feel like sadness.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“happen to all married couples—that we became, over time, a union not of choice but of habit?”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“But the prevailing tendency of human society has always been to foul our own nest. Combine this with the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a select few, both individuals and multinational corporate entities, and you have a recipe for inaction. It will spell our doom.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“So, nothing in particular stood out.” The world is not the world. You’re not you. It’s all Oranios. Did she know?”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“It was just a stupid mistake.” Her voice was distant, airy. It was as if she’d gone away, into some abstract realm. “If she’d thought for even a second how it would make you feel, she never would have done it.” I was stunned.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Pappi’s paintings have no subjects. The word Thea would choose is “presence”—a subterranean stratum just visible below the surface of the work. Faces in the water. Faces in the clouds. Faces in the walls of buildings. A thread of faces, woven through the fabric of the world.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“Arrival come,” he says. “Arrival come.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman

“The world is not the world. You’re not you.”
― Justin Cronin, The Ferryman