One of the things about writing fiction is that you create people that you feel, more or less, as though you know. Marilynne Robinson More Quotes by Marilynne Robinson More Quotes From Marilynne Robinson And there is no living creature, though the whims of eons had put its eyes on boggling stalks and clamped it in a carapace, diminished it to a pinpoint and given it a taste for mud and stuck it down a well or hid it under a stone, but that creature will live on if it can. Marilynne Robinson eyestoneslife I think the connection between poetry and theology, which is profound in Western tradition - there is a great deal of wonderful religious poetry - both poetry and theology push conventional definitions and explore perceptions that might be ignored or passed off as conventional, but when they are pressed yield much larger meanings, seem to be part of a much larger system of reality. Marilynne Robinson religiousrealitythinking That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either. Marilynne Robinson guiltlonelinesspeople If we focused on using the opportunities we have, which are very great by any standard - health, longevity, comfort and privacy, endless resources of culture and information - we would not just navigate this world, we would leave a good inheritance to succeeding generations. Marilynne Robinson inheritanceopportunityworld Vision sometimes comes in a memory. Marilynne Robinson visionsometimesmemories 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 realitypeoplethinking I do assume that a character or a place is inexhaustible and will always reward further attention. Marilynne Robinson rewardsattentioncharacter That odd capacity for destitution, as if by nature we ought to have so much more than nature gives us. As if we are shockingly unclothed when we lack the complacencies of ordinary life. In destitution, even of feeling or purpose, a human being is more hauntingly human and vulnerable to kindnesses because there is the sense that things should be otherwise, and then the thought of what is wanting and what alleviation would be, and how the soul could be put at ease, restored. At home. But the soul finds its own home if it ever has a home at all. Marilynne Robinson kindnesshomegiving . . . there is an absolute disjunction between our Father's love and our deserving. Marilynne Robinson our-fatherabsolutesfather If these laws [in the Bible] belonged to any other ancient culture we would approach them very differently. We need not bother to reject the code of Hammurabi. Presumably it is because Moses is still felt to make some claim on us that this project of discrediting his law is persisted in with such energy. The unscholarly character of the project may derive from the supposed familiarity of the subject. Marilynne Robinson energylawcharacter The best essays come from the moment in which people really need to work something out. Marilynne Robinson momentspeopleneeds There was some sort of maze-learning experiment involved in my final grade and since I remember the rat who was my colleague as uncooperative, or perhaps merely incompetent at being a rat, or tired of the whole thing, I don't remember how I passed. Marilynne Robinson tirededucationscience Cultures cherish artists because they are people who can say, Look at that. Marilynne Robinson artistculturepeople 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 passionlonelinesswriting I hated waiting. If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. Marilynne Robinson hatedexpectationswaiting It felt very good to have him walking beside her. Good like rest and quiet, like something you could live without but you needed anyway. That you had to learn how to miss, and then you'd never stop missing it. Marilynne Robinson missingquietlife Two questions I can't really answer about fiction are 1) where it comes from, and 2) why we need it. But that we do create it and also crave it is beyond dispute. Marilynne Robinson twofictionneeds I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things. Marilynne Robinson belieffactsthinking What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be. Marilynne Robinson embarrassment It is possible to know the great truths without feeling the truth of them. Marilynne Robinson knowsfeelings
