Patricia Raybon > Quotes

“Get close enough to someone and his or her halo slips--not because they're bad, but because they're mortal.”
― Patricia Raybon, My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love and Forgiveness

“Faith doesn't have to be much. Not any bigger than a mustard seed... That small. Only that much faith you'll need in me, God says, because I am so big. I am the Great I Am. So have faith in me.”
― Patricia Raybon, I Told the Mountain to Move: Learning to Pray So Things Change

“It doesn't matter that nobody sees your face or knows your name, my wide eyed child, my father said to me. You know it. You be it.
You are.”
― Patricia Raybon

“Jesus' tomb wasn't His grave, but our door.”
― Patricia Raybon, The One Year God's Great Blessings Devotional

“deep and sound sleep. The kind of sleep that restores a weary body, refreshes an aching soul, reprises a turbulent mind. So she luxuriated in it.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“When you’ve got too much religion that you can’t mingle with people, that you’re afraid of certain people, you’ve got too much religion. C. L. Franklin, from a 1955 sermon”
― Patricia Raybon, My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love and Forgiveness

“When you help folks solve their problems, don't be surprised if you solve your own.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“hard. Jack was staring at her. He yanked the napkin off his collar. “Annalee, I wish I just could explain how hard it was for me to learn this—that fighting a battle is about trusting other people, not to mention trusting somebody bigger than all of us. It’s not about taking control of the problem, but letting it go.” He laughed. “Yep, to God—and that is a doggone sermon!”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“Girl, don't you know nothing?"
"About the Klan?"
"They just a front."
"Bernita, a dangerous front."
"Making a lot of noise, burning the cross.
The Klans about money girl.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“if she'd had a tough time trying to live life as the Colored Professor. Annalee knew that in this uniform, she would simply disappear. her identity would blur and fade, then - poof- disintegrate. No wonder Benita acted so angry. In these clothes, people don't even see her.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“Do I have a choice?"
"A choice? To hear that your son is a crook? Your wife is an adulteress? Your caterer a blackmailer? And you maid takes bribes to stay quiet?”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“A detective uncovers the rebellion. Isn't that what sin is? Same with murder - the cunning, ugly ordinary mutiny of it?”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
― Patricia Raybon, Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace

“Because a simple colored man isn't murdered like that unless he stumbled onto something. Something unusual. Something dangerous. Something...damaging.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“You're Joe Spain's beautiful daughter. That's why you came back home- to finally discover every part of that truth.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“They're afraid of being afraid. Losing control of a world they never had controlled in the first place.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret

“Truth doesn't stay hidden. Neither do secrets. One day, to a praying heart, they disclose themselves.”
― Patricia Raybon, All That Is Secret