Mark Lages > Quotes

“One of the jokes was about a male human who walked into a bar with a loaded gun in his hand. He shouted to the patrons, “Which one of you dirty dogs has been sleeping with my wife? I swear I’m going to shoot you dead!” An old-timer at the bar turned around and said, “You should go home, son. You haven’t got enough bullets in that gun.”
― Mark Lages, Mr. Booker’s Summer Vacation

“I can think of nothing more personal than a child, a child who was made from a part of you and a part of your lover.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“At the end of the day, you should be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘I’m far from perfect, but I did my best.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“Do they know the emptiness that gnaws at my psyche? Do they know how lonely I actually am despite them? Do they understand what it’s like to devote your life to one gigantic maintenance project?”
― Mark Lages, Off the Furrow

“You can’t fill an empty bottle with it, you can’t wrap it up or put a bow on it, and you certainly can’t measure it. It has no weight, yet it can be as heavy as a mountain. It’s invisible, yet it can be as plain as the nose on your face. You won’t see it coming, yet it can hit you like a ton of bricks. It can knock you out. It can tickle you and make you laugh. It can move you to madness, and it can launch a thousand ships. It provokes you to do the craziest things. It can calm you, agitate you, motivate you, hurt you, and inspire you. No one knows where it comes from, why it is, or where it is going. You can’t force it, and you can’t ignore it. You can fight it tooth and nail, but odds are that it will be victorious. Sometimes it’s logical, and sometimes it makes no sense at all. I think we all experience it at one time or another. Some of us are much more susceptible to it than others. It makes us yearn, envy, hope, scheme, pity, and hate. Wise men and women will cherish it, and fools will take it for granted. Me? I don’t know if I’m a wise man or a fool—sometimes I’m one, and sometimes I’m the other. Sometimes I wish I’d never heard of it, and sometimes I believe I can’t live without it. Love,”
― Mark Lages, Jonathan’s Vows

“your memory is selective. You remember what you want to remember or what you believe happened or what you’re forced to remember. But seldom do you remember all you should remember.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“love him no matter what. By no matter what, I truly meant just that. A parent’s love for his or her child has to be unconditional. And why is this? It’s because if you bring a life into the world, you owe it your love always. You are totally responsible for it. It is a literal extension of yourself, and as such, you are called on to love”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“Do your best while realizing that your best is only a human effort and that human beings are often by nature clumsy, imperfect, infallible, weak, misguided, and prone to error.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“We will make up tonight or tomorrow. We will get along fine the next day and the next and the next—until we do it again, until the pot boils over, until we forget our love and throw around another batch of hurtful words. But until then, we will get along fine. Still, I can’t help but wonder if one of these times, we’re going to go too far.”
― Mark Lages, Jonathan’s Vows

“It’s like a scene from Orwell’s 1984, except it is real, and it is now. We are all just cases and numbers.”
― Mark Lages, Jonathan’s Vows

“Count your blessings, and you’ll live an awesome, sun-drenched, rosy-red life in spite of every dark cloud overhead.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“For sure there is nothing in the world like being a mother.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“Honestly, I don’t think parents have as much to do with how their children turn out as they’d like to think.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“But there is no right or wrong. There are only differences in viewpoints, opinions, feelings, desires, and goals.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“As for fashion, I advise against wearing dark blue with black,” Mom said. “Your dad always wore the two together. A bad idea. Just the sort of thing a man would do. Did your dad listen to me? No, he thought he knew better, but take it from me. Dark blue and black do not go together.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“It’s the love one has that never was. It’s a love unfulfilled. It’s a love that never had a chance, and it has a specific name.” “A name?” “They call it unrequited love.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“I don’t think there’s anything more tragic in the whole wide world than a man who has lost his individuality, lost his essence, lost all the things that help him stand apart from his peers.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“ Robinson's discussion with God:

"Tell me what it's like."
"What what's like?"
"To be God."
"Like, how do you mean?"
"Like, how does it make you feel to know you've created the planet earth and all its inhabitants. Do you feel proud? Sad? Embarrassed? Humbled? Mortified?"
"The truth? I feel imposed upon. I feel like an exhausted father whose needy children never grew up. Do you know what I'd like to see? Honest to me, this would make me the happiest guy on earth. I'd like to see everyone just take responsibility for themselves. Stop seeking my favor with your expensive churches, synagogues, mosques and temples. And quit wasting your time expecting me to solve all your problems. Am I the numbskull who created all your stupid problems? No, all I ever did was plant a handful of seeds. I'm not the one who cheats, lies, plunders, steals, hoodwinks, bribes, and scratches and claws his backward way through the unfaithful to his loving spouse or who is disrespectful to his parents. And I'm not the one who rapes and pollutes oceans, mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, deserts, and mesas. I'm not the one who's slaughtering all the whales in the seas, and I'm certainly not the one who's spreading AIDS, shooting innocent people with handguns and assault rifles, or overpopulating the planet. I'm not even responsible for acts of God. So what of the forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornados? You can thank dear Mother Nature for these so-called acts of me. All these disaster are completely out of my hands. Don't you see? I'm just me, God, and no more or less. Yes, I'm willing to give advice here and there, but even then , you will discover than my advice is no better than the advice you'd give yourself. And why? Because I am you. I was never anything else. I never claimed to be anything else, So, you get down on your knees and say you have faith in me? Try having some faith in yourself and leave me the hell out of it. I'm a busy man. There are books I would like to read, music I'd like to listen to, art I would like to see, and some good shows on TV I really don't want to miss.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson's Dream

“Abraham Lincoln said it best when he said in so many words that ‘the best way in the world to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream

“That’s the question, isn’t it? The moral of the fable is that it’s one thing to say what should be done and wholly another thing to actually do it.”
― Mark Lages, Robinson’s Dream