Linda Nichols > Quotes

“...I know I was wrong. If i could go back and do it over, I would. I wish I could undo it all."
I know that." Grandma reached over and put a twisted hand on hers. "'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.' Isaiah one eighteen."
I've done terrible things."
Don't make no difference. You can't out-sin the cross.”
― Linda Nichols

“The arm of flesh will fail you," Bridie's grandmother had been fond of reminding her, especially after she'd started dating, bringing home this one and that one, going on and on about them. "Love with all your heart, . . . but don't look to anybody but the Lord to fill up your empty spots. There's never been a man born . . . who can do that, and I don't care if he's the finest thing since store-bought pickles.”
― Linda Nichols

“But if it was going to end, she wondered, feeling confusion starting to fog her mind, why had he kissed her?”
― Linda Nichols, Handyman

“Something was coming into the room with Daniel when he came through the door. Someone. She felt something twist inside her, another hurdle rose up to cross. First she had opened the door to Daniel, then her life. Now, it seemed, she was being asked to open her heart.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“You think about what He gave up to be able to make you His child. What He did for you when you didn’t deserve it. Then maybe what Daniel has done won’t seem unforgivable.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“She gave him a slight smile. “You look like you’d have to get better to die.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“You’ve met life’s truest friend,” Mr. Caputo said, his eyes shining with tears.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“Mary means bitter, sorrowful.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“It’s all right,” he said, his hands on her shoulders, and he looked so earnest, his clear blue eyes lit by a fire she could not even dimly understand. “It’s really all right,” he said. “I wish I could make you understand that to me this isn’t sad. It’s like . . .” He struggled again. “It’s like this is the most important thing I’ll ever do in my life. Like dying well is the job I’m supposed to do now. Maybe the whole reason I’ve been put here. It makes me feel proud and strong. I can’t explain it. I just feel like that’s what God is saying to me.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“What’s happened to you, Daniel?” she asked, seeming more annoyed than curious. “I became a Christian,” he said, “a follower of Jesus,” and as soon as the words left his mouth, his head became clearer.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“Whatever death was, it was not the loss of the self, for he was aware. He was himself. Only gradually, with a sense of awe, did he realize that he was, in fact, alive. He had not died. Almighty God, for whatever reason, had spared him. Anything more than that would, forevermore, be unexpected gain. More than he deserved.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“After a moment he looked up to meet her eyes, but instead of the matter-of-fact resolution he expected to see, or perhaps the detached decision, he was met with yearning—pure, raw, and undisguised. And that look had the same effect on him as a call to battle, the sound of a ram’s horn being blown, the early morning whine of the bagpipe rousing the sleeping soldier. And whatever else was unclear, one thing became perfectly obvious. He could not lose her. He moved into the chaos without considering at all, and as he opened his mouth, the words that spilled out bore no resemblance to the eloquent speech he’d practiced.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“I’m sorry for all the wrong I’ve done.” She felt as if that wasn’t enough. As if she really should ask forgiveness for who she was instead of simply for what she’d done or forgotten to do. She didn’t know how to do that.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“I was just trying to imagine how I would feel if I were in your place.” Lenore raised her eyebrows. She had never known church people to be empathetic. Mostly they had seemed to want to get her to do something, be something, or believe something. None had been curious, at least about her.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“It was true what was said of illness, that it made the world end at the foot of your bed.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“Don’t let me outlive my love for you,” she whispered, and she felt He took that devotion and sealed it tight. She smiled, thinking how some would think her crazy, unbalanced, to take comfort in the thought of death. But to her, it wasn’t like that. Not an end, not a casket lid closing on hopes and dreams and life. It was a step. That was all. A foot extended from this dry, dusty place, coming down on fresh, living soil. Her heart would find its true home there.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“Love with all your heart, Mary, but don’t look to anybody but the Lord to fill up your empty spots. There’s never been a man born of woman who can do that, and I don’t care if he’s the finest thing since store-bought pickles.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“She wondered if forgiveness was more like peeling an onion than breaking an egg. That had been top-layer forgiveness. This would be deep forgiveness, boring down to the bedrock, to the taproot, to the core of who she was and what Daniel”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“She would sit there and play by herself, think and read, and talk to Jesus as if He were stretched out beside her on the bed of pine needles, hands pillowing His head, listening.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“Standing in her hallway he had seen the sign, He has set the lonely in families, and it had struck him then that the word lonely had applied to her and Scott. And he had made them so. Had left them unprotected, alone, at the mercy of the storms of life. He didn’t feel the seductive comfort of depression anymore, the drawing, cloying melancholy, the self-pity. He didn’t even feel the dread, the emotion that had propelled him here. He felt shame.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“He had very clearly impressed on each of us individually through the Scriptures, through the voice of the Spirit, what He wanted. ‘Lift me up,’ He said, ‘and I will draw people to myself. Seek my face; humble yourselves. Lift me up, and I’ll take care of everything else.’ We promised to make praise and prayer the cornerstone of our church. And God has blessed us.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“What was it about Christmas that caused such a mix of beauty and pain? Maybe it was the very meaning of the holiday. The baby born to die. Maybe there was no separating the joy from the sorrow. Perhaps it was a mistake to even try.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“If you feel sad, tell your daddy. Tell Aunt Lorna. Turn around and look the sadness in the eye, and it won’t get the best of you. Everybody feels sad,” Bridie finished. “There’s nothing there to be afraid of. It’s running from things that gives them strength.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“I’ve done terrible things.” “Don’t make no difference. You can’t out-sin the cross.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“How has Alasdair done with it all?” Bridie asked boldly, feeling her cheeks heat. Lorna answered without looking up from the road. “Sometimes,” she said, her voice quiet, “I’m not sure he even knows Anna’s gone.”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“It’s all right,” he said, his hands on her shoulders, and he looked so earnest, his clear blue eyes lit by a fire she could not even dimly understand. “It’s really all right,” he said. “I wish I could make you understand that to me this isn’t sad. It’s like . . .” He struggled again. “It’s like this is the most important thing I’ll ever do in my life. Like dying well is the job I’m supposed to do now. Maybe the whole reason I’ve been put here. It makes me feel proud and strong. I can’t explain it. I just feel like that’s what God”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“He had made a mistake. A huge, deep crevasse of a mistake, a fault that was now quaking, widening, threatening to swallow him up. He knew only one thing. He couldn’t fix it. It was too deep, too long, too late for that. He could acknowledge it, though, he realized, staring at the stack of white towels on the cold metal rack, the stark white of the wall behind them. He owed her that much.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“Wouldn’t the world be a better place if people could be thrown into a pot and mixed together?”
― Linda Nichols, Not a Sparrow Falls

“Lenore had changed. Her physical body had changed. He had noticed that right away. She was fuller, stronger, calmer. But something had changed inside her, as well. He could see it in her eyes. They used to look hungry. But they didn’t look like that anymore. Now they were calm and settled, and he was the one who was hungry. He wondered if it showed in his eyes, on his face, the way it used to in hers.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World

“She shrugged. “Pride says, ‘I’ll bring an offering to appease you.’ Humility says, ‘I come empty-handed and throw myself on your mercy.’ It’s dangerous,” she said, reading his thoughts. “It’s radical. They may be fresh out.”
― Linda Nichols, If I Gained the World