Laura McBride > Quotes

“It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is the whole thing.
What is most beautiful, is least acknowledged.
What is worth dying for is barely noticed.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“The way I see it, nothing in life is a rehearsal. It's not preparation for anything else. There's no getting ready for it. There's no waiting for the real part to begin.Not ever. Not even for the smallest child. This is it. And if you wait too long to figure that out, to figure out that we are the ones making the world, we are the ones to whom all the problems - and all the possibilities for grace - now fall, then you lose everything. Your only shot at the world.
I get that this one small life is all we have for whatever it is that we are going to do. And I want in.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“What are the words to say to someone who gave you back your life, who believed that you still had a soul, who acknowledged how bad it was to feel? Shouldn't there be another language for this? Different words altogether?”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“I've been practicing in my mind, trying to find some words, but they've all been taken, all used for ordinary considerations that mean nothing in comparison to what he has meant. We say "Thank you very much" and "I so appreciate what you have done" to people who fill our grocery bags, to people who offer us a ride across town. What are the words to say to someone who gave you back your life, who believed that you still had a soul, who acknowledged how bad it was possible to feel? Shouldn't there be another language for this? Different words altogether?”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called To Rise

“There are cases that I just can't forget.....What it is. I don't know. I think it's the ones where something small changes everything. Where the tiniest act , the smallest space of time, the most inconsequential of decisions, changes a life. A split second separates the long-lost friends who either see or miss each other at an airport. And from that , a relationship does or does not develop, perhaps a lifetime partnership,, perhaps even children. Human beings who might or might not have existed. Whole lives built out of the most fragile of happenstance.
And maybe that's why our lives are beautiful; why they're tragic. One perfect child can be born of an accidental encounter, and another lost to a split-second lapse in attention. If a motorist leans over to change a radio station at the same moment that it first occurs to a four year old that he can let go of his mother's hand as easily as hang onto it, and that if he lets go he will be across the road first, before his mother, and that she will certainly laugh and say, "How fast you are, Johnny!" If the child does this and the motorist does that , and if the world then changes forever and unbearably for everyone involved, then is that not life in its simplest form?
That so little matters so much, and so much matters so little.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“. . . it feels like I’ve been thrown down a chute. I’m careening forward, trying not to get too banged up, utterly out of control of my descent, and somewhere in the dark, there’s a hole waiting for me to fall through it.”
― Laura McBride

“But failing isn’t proof that nothing matters or that we were fools to care. We fail even though things matter very much; it’s the possibility of failure that makes them matter even more.”
― Laura McBride

“It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listened to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is a whole thing.
What is most beautiful is least acknowledged.
What is worth dying for is barely noticed.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“What I want is for the life I lived to matter still. I have already been young. I have…a child. I have reared another one. I was in love. I married. I worked. I made friends. I cooked twelve thousand meals. Made eight thousand beds. Kissed a child awake and kissed a child asleep, encouraged and discouraged and recouraged, over and over. And now, am I supposed to start anew?
I don’t think I’m interested…
…I worked so hard to imagine a life I had never seen. And I made that life. I did it.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“...I'd rather live knowing I made a mistake than wondering if I could have made a difference if I'd tried.
The way I see it, nothing in life is a rehersal. It's not preparation for anything else. There's no getting ready for it. There's no waiting for the real part to begin. Not ever. Not even for the smallest child. This is it. And if you wait too long to figure that out, to figure out that we are the ones making the world, we are the ones to whom all the problems- and all the possibilities for grace- now fall, then you lose everything. Your only shot at this world.
I get that this one small life is all we have for whatever it is we are going to do. And I want in.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“We say 'Thank you very much' and 'I so appreciate what you have done' to people who fill our grocery bags, to people who offer us a ride across town. What are the words to say to someone who gave you back your life, who believed that you still had a soul, who acknowledged how bad it was possible to feel? Shouldn't there be another language for this? Different words altogether? And if I use the same old words, did I change what I was trying to say? Did I make it a same old thing?”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“That's one thing I learned from Ray Senior. You don't owe an explanation to anybody but the Lord, and most people will stop asking if you act like you won't be telling.”
― Laura McBride

“Every step forward counts, every step forward makes the next one easier.”
― Laura McBride

“But that's the thing, how you feel about the place that's home. About its sky, its air, its smell, the color of the light, the way the rain falls (or doesn't), whether it hot or cold.”
― Laura McBride

“I'd rather live knowing I made a mistake than wondering if I could have made a difference if I'd tried.”
― Laura McBride

“. . . in the length of time measured by infinity, and in the size of a world measured by countless universes, is it possible to believe that our lives are anything more than a few blades of grass?”
― Laura McBride

“The way I see it, nothing in life is a rehearsal. It's not preparation for anything else. There's no getting ready for it. There's no waiting for the real part to begin. Not ever.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“And, really, if she had been given the choice- the whole choice, the good, and the bad, the pain and the glory,- she would have taken it. She would have said yes. Who knows, maybe she HAD been given that choice; maybe there was a reality in which she had chosen this life, somehow, someway, in that realm in which the truth was grander than anything one could know with the mind, but which did not, for Honorata, have anything to do with religion or a church of the way in which people spoke of these things.”
― Laura McBride

“Maybe the point is just to get through one hour, and then another, and not think farther ahead than that.”
― Laura McBride

“I shiver with anger and hold on to the beautiful strength of this clean emotion”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“Sometimes it’s not that you don’t want help. It’s that you can’t bear to be offered help that just keeps turning out not to be enough after all.”
― Laura McBride

“...then is that not life in its simplest form? That so little matters so much, and so much matters so little.”
― Laura McBride

“Mrs. Monaghan says we don’t always have to say what we like and what we don’t like. We should just practice dealing with it.”
― Laura McBride

“The sky is a living thing when one is a desert dweller, stretched out, vast and imposing, with its constant dance of cloud and color, the visual equivalent of a movie soundtrack to one’s life.”
― Laura McBride

“We say 'Thank you very much' and 'I so appreciate what you have done' to people who fill our grocery bags, to people who offere us a ride across town. What are the words to say to someone who gave you back your life, who believed that you still had a soul, who acknowledged how bad it was possible to feel? Shouldn't there be another language for this? Different words altogether? And if I use the same old words, did I change what I was trying to say? Did I make it a same old thing?”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“Life perfects us, if we let it.”
― Laura McBride

“It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listens to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges help, gives credit, says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the lonely, is a whole thing.
What is most beautiful is least acknowledged.
What is worth dying for is barely noticed.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“People didn't get what they deserved, you couldn't hold off bad luck by being good, you couldn't say you earned your good luck. You just got what you got, and did the best you could, and tried not to be afraid of what might happen next.”
― Laura McBride

“It all matters. That someone turns out the lamp, picks up the windblown wrapper, says hello to the invalid, pays at the unattended lot, listed to the repeated tale, folds the abandoned laundry, plays the game fairly, tells the story honestly, acknowledges helo, gives credit says good night, resists temptation, wipes the counter, waits at the yellow, makes the bed, tips the maid, remembers the illness, congratulates the victor, accepts the consequences, takes a stand, steps up, offers a hand, goes first, goes last, chooses the small portion, teaches the child, tends to the dying, comforts the grieving, removes the splinter, wipes the tear, directs the lost, touches the loney, is a whole thing.
What is most beautiful is least acknowledged.
What is worth dying for is barely noticed.”
― Laura McBride, We Are Called to Rise

“....once she had believed the world could become new again, that the right people in the right place could make up any rules they wanted. And none of this was true. They had all paid the price. And really, where was the moment that should have happened differently? Which was the choice that had set all the others in motion? And would a different choice have been the right one?”
― Laura McBride