Quote

I have always liked the phrase nursing a grudge because many people are tender of their resentments as of the thing nearest their hearts.

Marilynne Robinson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Marilynne Robinson
Age: 80
Born: 1943
Born: November 26
Essayist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Sandpoint
Idaho
Marilynne Summers Robinson
Marilynne S. Robinson
Hearts
Nearest
Many
Grudge
Heart
Nursing
Thing
Tender
Always
Phrase
People
Resentment
Phrases
Liked
Resentments

More quotes by Marilynne Robinson

Image
I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all . . . except what you can't be rid of.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
When we did not move or speak, there was no proof that we were there at all.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
People don't acknowledge loneliness in themselves, and don't appreciate its benefits, the reflection and attentiveness that come with it, the deepened acquaintance with oneself.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
Never, ever condescend to the reader. Assume you are writing for someone better and smarter than you are. This will protect you from conventionalism, faddishness, and cliché.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
There are several sources for my appreciation of pastors and the way they are described in this book. One of them is reading history and realizing that they had a profound creative impact on the Middle West and the settlement of the Middle West.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
Many times when I stop working on a problem consciously, my mind continues to work on it below the surface. Often solutions come on me quite by surprise. I've learned over time to allow that to happen, rather than to feel that I can simply solve the problem by continuous, grueling effort.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
The assumption behind any theology that I've ever been familiar with is that there is a profound beauty in being, simply in itself. Poetry, at least traditionally, has been an educing of the beauty of language, the beauty of experience, the beauty of the working of the mind, and so on. The pastor does, indeed, appreciate it.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
I sometimes am discouraged by what seems to be a sort of conventional disparagement of humankind. I think often people feel that they are doing something moral when they are doing that, but that's not how I understand morality. I much prefer the everyone is sacred, and everybody errs model of reality.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
I think the essence of family is that you have to agree to it, and then supply, out of your imagination and capacity for loyalty, the contents of it.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
I don't know exactly what covetous is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else's virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
That's one good thing about the way life is, that no one can know you if you don't let them.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
It seems to me people tend to forget that we are to love our enemies, not to satisfy some standard of righteousness but because God their Father loves them.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
Christianity is a life, not a doctrine . . . I'm not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I'm saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
Somebody who had read Lila asked me, ‘Why do you write about the problem of loneliness?’ I said: ‘It’s not a problem. It’s a condition. It’s a passion of a kind. It’s not a problem. I think that people make it a problem by interpreting it that way.’
Marilynne Robinson
Image
It was a source of both terror and comfort to me then that I often seemed invisible - incompletely and minimally existent, in fact. It seemed to me that I made no impact on the world, and that in exchange I was privileged to watch it unawares.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
Faith takes a great many forms, suited to a variety of sensibilities, and mine happens to suit me very well.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
Rejoice with those who rejoice. I have found that difficult too often. I was much better at weeping with those who weep.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
Generosity is also an act of freedom, a casting off of the constraints of prudence and self-interest.
Marilynne Robinson
Image
We have demythologized prematurely, that we've actually lost the vocabulary for discussing reality at its largest scales. The idea that myth is the opposite of knowledge, or the opposite of truth, is simply to disallow it. It is like saying poetry is the opposite of truth.
Marilynne Robinson