Marie Benedict > Quotes

“Her quietude was not weakness; it was an ardent watchfulness that would be replaced by a roar when required.”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein

“... it occurred to me that we are all unreliable narrators of our own lives, crafting stories about ourselves that omit unsavory truths and highlight our invented identities.”
― Marie Benedict, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

“The deeper we each read, the more we would understand about this world”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“while the first step is the hardest, the second isn’t much easier.”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein

“I still believe. I still believe that someday there will be equality in this country. That someday there will be a new civil rights act, and a new president and Congress to enforce it. That everyone will be able to follow their dream, regardless of race. That those words about the equality of men in the Declaration of Independence will be true.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“This moment in time, shimmering and blissful, was hard to relinquish.”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein

“One day, Belle, we will be able to reach back through the decades and claim you as one of our own. Your accomplishments will be part of history; they’ll show doubtful white people what colored people can do. Until that time, live your life proudly.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“Changing your name is easy. Changing your soul is impossible.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“Friends did matter. Friends like these anyway, ones who were fiercely intelligent and similarly ambitious, who suffered through the same sort of ridicule and condemnation and survived, smiling. These friends didn’t take away my resolve to succeed as I’d feared. They made me stronger. •”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein

“Never apologize for intellectual curiosity or the appreciation of fine art, Miss Greene.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“being a woman, I know that I must do my job twice as well as any man to be thought half as good.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“The tie between parent and child is unbreakable, despite the sort of relationship they actually shared.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“I was invited. And even though I anticipated their reaction, their racism isn’t my problem. Racism belongs to the people who are racists.”
― Marie Benedict, The First Ladies

“Mitza, you are like the objects in one of Newton’s investigations. You tirelessly maintain your velocity through life unless you are acted upon by an outside force. I hope no outside force ever changes your velocity.” Papa”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein

“Segregation is really just slavery by another name, lynching is one of its proponents’ weapons, and we would be subjected to segregation and threatened by lynchings if we lived as colored anywhere in this country.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“Perhaps this was mankind’s fate—to learn that none of our paths were as straight as we believed they would be.”
― Marie Benedict, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie

“I have searched for you for well over a year. I have hired detectives and bounty hunters and I have employed my own security men as well. They have looked in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and pretty much everywhere in between. Even the staunchest of private detectives found not a trace of you after you left the bank in Pittsburgh. It was as if you never existed. But you did exist, Clara. You stamped your mark upon me, and I will stamp your mark upon the world to prove your existence and remind myself to stay your course. As you would have desired, any fortune I amass will be dedicated for the betterment of mankind, particularly the education and improvement of the poorer and immigrant classes by the establishment of free libraries.”
― Marie Benedict, Carnegie's Maid

“You must never apologize for a sin someone else has committed,”
― Marie Benedict, The First Ladies

“You and I are not so different except in the choices we’ve made. And remind yourself that a new choice is always possible.”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein

“But I had stared the leaders of our enemies in the eyes and turned my ear to their voices, and I knew the terror they meant to wreak upon our world.”
― Marie Benedict, The Only Woman in the Room

“could never really leave the first history behind. My past life would seep into my new world like water through cracks in a dam that had never been properly shored—until I faced my original history square on.”
― Marie Benedict, The Only Woman in the Room

“These friends didn’t take away my resolve to succeed as I’d feared. They made me stronger. •”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein

“Part of the struggle to make change is the struggle to get the right change-makers in place.”
― Marie Benedict, The First Ladies

“In order to assimilate with this crowd, I must be bold, daring to hide my differences in plain sight.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“As Mrs. Barrett Browning says, ‘The world of books is still the world.”
― Marie Benedict, Carnegie's Maid

“Most of us are mysteries unto ourselves, and part of our lifelong quest is an effort to understand our authentic selves and our purpose.”
― Marie Benedict, The Queens of Crime

“My plan is to turn the Pierpont Morgan Library from a private library into a public institution so that thousands and thousands of people will see the beauty and significance of the early written word—the importance of reading and books as a great equalizer among humankind.”
― Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian

“The risks of the conflict never overwhelmed me, only the fear of marginalization.”
― Marie Benedict, Lady Clementine

“We're all pretending in this life, one way or another.”
― Marie Benedict, Carnegie's Maid

“Friends did matter. Friends like these anyway, ones who were fiercely intelligent and similarly ambitious, who suffered through the same sort of ridicule and condemnation and survived, smiling.”
― Marie Benedict, The Other Einstein