Mary Doria Russell Quotes

privileged to share in the athletic power of a large and dangerous animal willing to be controlled by the small, frail strength of a mere human being.

...trust in God could impose an additional burden on good people slammed to their knees by some senseless tragedy. An atheist might be no less staggered by such an event, but nonbelievers often experienced a kind of calm acceptance: shit happens, and this particular shit happened to them. It could be more difficult for a person of faith to get to his feet precisely because he had to reconcile God's love and care with the stupid, brutal fact that something irreversibly terrible had happened.

The new fashions sold in department
stores had thrown skilled American seamstresses out of work, you see.
They’d been displaced by immigrant girls doing piecework for a pittance
in terrible sweatshops. I refused to patronize a garment industry
that exploited its desperately poor workers so heartlessly.
And if that wasn’t enough to keep me out of stores, there was this as
well: I was determined to resist that shameless sister of war propaganda — the advertising industry.

Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine,” Vincenzo Giuliani said quietly. “ ‘Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’ ” “But the sparrow still falls,” Felipe said.

Home...if there is a more beautiful word in any language, I do not know it.

What unnatural words. Always and forever! Those aren't human words, Jim. Not even stones are always and forever.

"Distressing to be hated because of lies, isn't it." (Mirella)
"Especially when there are so many legitimate reasons to be hated." (Schramm)

Did you think you were the only one? Is it possible that you are so arrogant?” he asked, in tones of wonderment. Sandoz was blinking rapidly now. “Did you think you were the only one ever to wonder if what we do is worth the price we pay? Did you honestly believe that you alone, of all those who have gone, were the single man to lose God? Do you think we would have a name for the sin of despair, if only you had experienced it?

here’s what good people do: We don’t give up. We will not be cowed. We will refute their lies. We will get the vote, and we will use it. We will take them to court. We will march in their streets, and we will fight for justice every damned step of the way.

"You’ve seen what," Emilio conceded, "but not why! That’s where God is, Anne. In the why of it — in the meaning."

My experience is that many things are not as bad as I thought they would be.

God's got a lot of explaining to do. Of course, God never explains. When life breaks your heart, you're just supposed to pick up the pieces and start all over, I guess.

Dachshunds have their own agenda and can be stubborn about seeing their plans through to completion. What Rosie lacked in consistency, she made up for in enthusiasm. Most of the time when I called her name, she sprinted back, her long ears cocked and flying like a little girl's pigtails. Each encounter was a glorious reunion, even if we'd been parted for only a minute or two. I had never felt so loved.

It is a scholar’s task to find patterns in nature or cycles in history. Initially, it’s no different from finding portraits of animals and heroes in the stars. The question is, Have you discovered a preexisting truth? Or have you imposed an arbitrary meaning on whatever it is you’re considering?

"there are still times when the thief I started out to be feels more authentic to me than the priest I’ve been for decades. To be pulled out of a slum and educated is to be an outsider forever — " He stopped talking, deeply embarrassed. Giuliani could never understand the price scholarship boys paid for their education: the inevitable alienation from your uncomprehending family, from roots, from your own first person, from the original "I" you once were.