Quote

Poets and monks... We're both sort of peripheral to the world.

Kathleen Norris

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Kathleen Norris
Peripheral
Monks
Monk
Poets
Poet
Sort
World

More quotes by Kathleen Norris

Image
But in order to have an adult faith, most of us have to outgrow and unlearn much of what we were taught about religion.
Kathleen Norris
Image
When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?
Kathleen Norris
Image
Maybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are other than they are. The irony and wonder of all of this is that it is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.
Kathleen Norris
Image
There seems to be so much more winter than we need this year.
Kathleen Norris
Image
The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry.
Kathleen Norris
Image
I am learning to see loneliness as a seed that, when planted deep enough, can grow into writing that goes back out into the world.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Acedia is a danger to anyone whose work requires great concentration and discipline yet is considered by many to be of little practical value. The world doesn't care if I write another word, and if I am to care, I have to summon all my interior motivation and strength.
Kathleen Norris
Image
You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that, and cling to it through thick and thin.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Traversing a slow page, to come upon a lode of the pure shining metal is to exult inwardly for greedy hours.
Kathleen Norris
Image
I write what I would like to read.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.
Kathleen Norris
Image
If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it's because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.
Kathleen Norris
Image
For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to go. As we stumble through the crazily altered landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as never before.
Kathleen Norris
Image
The often heard lament, 'I have so little time,' gives the lie to the delusion that the daily is of little significance.
Kathleen Norris
Image
We can't give our children the future, strive though we may to make it secure. But we can give them the present.
Kathleen Norris
Image
To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.
Kathleen Norris
Image
The High Plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act as a crucible for those who inhabit them.
Kathleen Norris
Image
When you come to a place where you have to left or right, go straight ahead.
Kathleen Norris
Image
Not money, or success, or position or travel or love makes happiness,--service is the secret.
Kathleen Norris