Stephen P. Kiernan > Quotes

“And what is life but a little row in a small boat, every moment leaving what we know, every stroke unable to see where we are headed?”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“We all have times when life intervenes and we get little done. But when our days are numbered, it feels like a kind of thievery. If there is ever a chapter in life with no time to waste, it is the last one.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“After all, what is love but the desire to know another person as thoroughly and deeply as possible? Every quirk and passion, each response to the changes of time, every possible inch of skin? Also perhaps to be ourselves known, with all our flaws, yet somehow miraculously still be desired?”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“No deception lasts forever. Truth rises like good bread dough.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“How old am I again?"
"You are seventy-eight, Professor."
He wagged his head. "How in the hell did that happen?"
"That you've lived so many years?"
"That they passed so quickly. As brief as lighting.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“There is no way to bring back what has been lost, but maybe telling a tale of beauty is a form of mourning.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“Treatment of returning soldiers throughout history. Did you know one-third of the Union dead in the Civil War were buried before the bodies had been identified? Or that black soldiers in the south, coming home from World War I, were beaten for wearing uniforms in public? And now there are tens of thousands of guys like me just waiting, you know, standing in line for help? We trusted our country, we fought for it, and now it is blowing us off. It happens in every war, is the point. Soldiers are mistreated when they come home. Joel said everyone complains about people spitting on Vietnam vets, but who knows? Maybe that was more honest.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“Our challenge is to live with all the sincerity that is in our hearts, and hope that those who doubt will come to see the truth.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“If you want to know your worth in this world, make a list of the people who will starve when you die. Who”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Kate, I imagine that very few people reach the end of their lives and regret having spent too many hours relaxing beside the ocean.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“I heard obscenities everywhere, as though the world were populated entirely by longshoremen... Had no one told them that coarseness lacks dignity?”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“Fear, they learned, did not live in the heart or mind. It inhabited the stomach like a bad oyster. There was nothing to do but endure it.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“If you see God,” she said finally, “ask Him why He stopped loving us.” Emma”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Was there always to be someone who, by comparison, made your circumstances seem fortunate?”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“I have paid attention, and learned one thing in this life: Whatever you love, no matter how fiercely, you will lose it one day. That is the only certainty. Therefore be as kind as you can. Don’t fear your mistakes, as long as you learn humility from them. There is no such thing as perfect pitch.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, Universe of Two

“A tale in which one is mortified does not bear repeating.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Dear God, I am on my way to kill someone, please protect me so I don’t get caught or shot.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Glass Château

“Perhaps slavery is harder for a person who has known freedom. Perhaps it does not matter. The”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“I felt his marital commitment more in that moment than I ever had before. It wasn't noisy or passionate. It was quiet, and patient, and slowly piecing itself back together.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“Of all the fabrications propagated during this masterpiece of savagery,” he said, “none is worse than the lie that victory is the same thing as peace.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Glass Château

“When Emma was fifteen Uncle Ezra had taught her reduction, boiling a full pot of beef or chicken stock down to a quarter cup of spectacular concentrated flavor. Now she understood that there was another kind of reduction, and she had allowed it to happen to her: living made small, a way of life diminished and humiliated.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“A man could be outwardly obedient, but tardiness revealed his inner determination, proof that slavery affects only the body. It does not include possession of the heart. The”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“All through those years of war, the bread tasted of humiliation.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Maybe it was that simple: she helped the hungry, she fed an animal. One creature’s weed was another creature’s breakfast, and thus could the village be fed. “All”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Even now, the angling of the light into this room. The curl of the curtain as it falls from a slackening breeze. To call these things symphonies would be untrue. They are but two of the hundred thousand simultaneous extravagances known as existence.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“My literary references seem right, but no one around me is well read enough to correct any errors.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Curiosity

“Are you with the Resistance?” “No. I am simply trying to survive, and to help those I can.” Fleur”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“But I believe the measure of a vow does not lie in saying it, or upholding it when things are easy. The power of a promise is proven in times of difficulty, when keeping that pledge is hard. My husband was giving me ample opportunity to prove the strength of my vows.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird

“If God exists, He is resting comfortably on the ocean’s far shore, reclining in plump chairs beside our so-called Allies, who have perfected the art of watching us suffer and doing nothing about it.” The”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“I have seen people tell patients to keep fighting—typically sons speaking to fathers—when clearly all the exhausted patriarch wants to do is rest. I bide my time, then point out how hard the patient has fought already, and ask them to consider giving him permission to go. Sometimes the people listen, and the patient dies at peace. Sometimes they don’t listen, and the patient dies anyway. Nature will have her way.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Hummingbird