Allen Levi > Quotes

“the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“It’s hard enough to define what art is, much less ‘good art.’ I wonder if there is such a thing. Maybe there are just good responses. But I guess if a work of art makes us see something familiar in a new way or makes us feel something we ought to have felt all along or shows us our place in the world more clearly, maybe then it qualifies as ‘good.’ If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. I’m not even sure I know fully what that means, but the older I get, the more I believe it. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“How is it, Theo wondered, that a piece of paper - a letter, a photo, a ticket stub, a sketch, a painting - is suddenly transformed by placing it in four bits of wood beneath a pane of glass? What does it mean that we place permanent boundaries around transient moments? What does it say of humankind that we take such trouble to freeze specific memories, that we devote such energy to capturing and preserving the "minute particulars" of our lives?”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Perhaps I am mistaken but, at some point, if we are wise, we must all confront our sadness, our brokenness, our disappointment. I am quite certain that your portraits help some people, in a very tender and courteous way, to ask themselves, maybe for the first time, ‘Who is that person? What do I know to be true, really true, about that face?’ . . .”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“faith, hope, and love endure, but the greatest of these is love.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Mr. Wordsworth, perhaps in a literature class at some point in your studies. He once wrote that the best portion of a good person’s life is ‘the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“Unmet expectations have a clever way of showing up at every stage of life.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“do good, bestow kindness, strive for beauty, seek and find the river that leads to life everlasting, and draw from the fountain that never runs dry. “Like Theo did. “For heaven’s sake.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another. In fact, I wonder if, on this side of heaven, either one can be complete without the other.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“write”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“God gave us faces so we can see each other better.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“they’s justice and they’s mercy. If you not sure what to do and you gotta choose one or the other”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“Theo shook his head. “No, my dear. Sadness might be many things, but it is rarely stupid. The good sadness, I think, is always trying to tell us something very important.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“Maybe not. But maybe yes. Ellen, the older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived. Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“There is another teaching about kindness,” Theo said. “ ‘Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“and he was a man very easily interested”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“This old man will someday leave the world knowing that”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“The sartorial finery was standard practice for Simone”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“Theo could have come to us with great fanfare. He could have flaunted his importance and impressed us with his great wealth and long list of accomplishments. Instead, he came with anonymous handwritten letters and no last name. Instead, he came, as did His Lord, not to be served but to serve.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

“the older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived. Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“Ellen”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“We’re just going to ride till we get somewhere.”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“Life was too short for azaleas in black vases. The phrase “poisonous beauty” formed in his mind. He wondered if there might be other things that”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“Seems like unmet expectation is one of the hazards of this line of work. From what I can tell”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel

“say that?” “Well”
― Allen Levi, Theo of Golden: A Novel