#marilynne robinson

[quotespile]

A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

[megairea]

I’m grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, 2004

[luthienne]

My own dark time, as I call it, the time of my loneliness, was most of my life, as I have said, and I can't make any real account of myself without speaking of it. The time passed so strangely, as if every winter were the same winter, and every spring the same spring.

Marilynne Robinson, from Gilead

[aseaofquotes]

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

[theinwardlight]

When Jesus describes Judgment, the famous separation of the sheep from the goats, he does not mention religious affiliation or sexual orientation or family values. He says, "I was hungry, and ye fed me not" (Matthew 25:42).

Marilynne Robinson

[introvertlifestyle]

I owe everything that I have done to the fact that I am very much at ease being alone.

Marilynne Robinson (American writer, *1943)

[antifainternational]

"Fascism is not a politics, it is a pathology compounded of nostalgia and resentment. European fascism has had clear markers, three being white supremacy and Christian nationalism, and, of course, charismatic leadership. In using the word “pathology” I put aside the idea of politics as usual. Other patterns are easily discernible within our American strain of this virus...Fascism is an autoimmune disease. Under the banner of patriotism it hates its nation and people and oversteps all civilized limits in its zeal to bring about fundamental change, whatever the damage. Something of the kind is discernible in the talk of secession, national divorce, civil war." -Marilynne Robinson, "US conservatives love to warn of creeping fascism. Do they understand what it is?" The Guardian, April 13, 2023

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The River at Ascutney, 1942 Maxfield Parrish

* * * *

Every prayer seemed long to me at that age, and I was truly bone tired. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but after a while I had to look around a little. And this is something I remember very well. At first I thought I saw the sun setting in the east; I knew where east was, because the sun was just over the horizon when we got there that morning. Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down. Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them. It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were great taut skeins of light suspended between them. I wanted my father to see it, but I knew I’d have to startle him out of his prayer, and I wanted to do it the best way, so I took his hand and kissed it. And then I said, “Look at the moon.” And he did. We just stood there until the sun was down and the moon was up. They seemed to float on the horizon for quite a long time, I suppose because they were both so bright you couldn’t get a clear look at them. And that grave, and my father and I, were exactly between them, which seemed amazing to me at the time, since I hadn’t given much thought to the nature of the horizon. My father said, “I would never have thought this place could be beautiful. I’m glad to know that.”

from "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson

[tonreihe]

“There is a saying that to understand is to forgive, but that is an error, so Papa used to say. You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding…. If you forgive, he would say, you may indeed still not understand, but you will be ready to understand, and that is the posture of grace.”

—Marilynne Robinson, Home

[exhaled-spirals]

Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.

— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

[litsnaps]

[quotespile]

We are moved to respond to the fact of human brilliance, human depth in all its variety because it is the most wonderful thing in the world, very probably the most wonderful thing in the universe.

Marilynne Robinson, The Givenness of Things

[megairea]

Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life. All it needs from you is that you take care not to trample on it.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, 2004

[leguin]

Now it is as if public discourse exists only to be disrupted, as if gaffes and scandals, without regard to their authenticity or significance, were the real substance of collective life, and attempts at coherent conversation about what is to be wished for or what is to be done were pretension or naivete or a strategy of concealment, the bland surface through which the next brainless sensation is sure to erupt. When a good man or woman stumbles, we say, "I knew it all along," and when a bad one has a gracious moment, we sneer at the hypocrisy. It is as if there is nothing to mourn or to admire, only a hidden narrative now and then apparent through the false, surface narrative. And the hidden narrative, because it is ugly and sinister, is therefore true.

"Facing Reality" in The Death of Adam, Marilynne Robinson

[mythologyofblue]

“This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.” ― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

[theinwardlight]

First, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind. As children we learn to say, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me". We learn that, after his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age". Christ is a gracious, abiding presence in all reality, and in him history will finally be resolved. These are larger, more embracing terms than contemporary Christianity is in the habit of using.

Marilynne Robinson, "Fear", in New York Review of Books