Frederic S. Durbin > Quotes

“To live in this world, I realized, is to leave pieces of your heart in various places; and to move toward any place is to move away from another.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“The older I become, the more I understand Mr. Girandole's look of sadness and what he must have been thinking then. These games with tangerine peels... the times of little wide-eyed girls arriving on the terrace, and boys with notebooks... none of it lasted for more than a breath. Time never turned backward. Summer gave way to winter, and summer came again, and year by year, the vines lengthened, and the sharp detail faded from the statues- scales becoming ripples, passion becoming tranquility. Each time Mr. Girandole saw Grandmother, he looked at her like we all ought to look at one another, every time.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“One person, I’d come to understand, was actually many people—people of different ages, people who lived in different surroundings; these people all had the same name and knew something of each other, but they lived entirely separate lives.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“I had reached a way-marker on the path to adulthood-- the first dividing of my heart. To live in this world, I realized, is to leave pieces of your heart in various places; and to move toward any place is to move away from another.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“What are you going to do with all these, anyway?"
"Lot of pumpkins, isn't it?" answered Henry. "I could open my own market, couldn't I? Or make enough pies to feed the neighborhood."
I admired Henry that way; he did such a good job of giving people normal-sounding answers without ever telling a lie that he could usually come across ordinary even when doing something moderately strange. For example, he didn't come right out and say, "I'm going home to make thirteen jack-o'-lanterns." That was an art.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, Dragonfly

“We can't avoid pain, but misery is always a choice.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“. . .the essence of Faery is all around us, written in every leaf.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“Do you read the Bible?"
. . . .
"Do you suppose that the Elder Folk don't know who makes the trees grow? We've known Him since the beginning." Climbing again, he added: "I would never disregard a book simply because it was so new and so concise.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“They call it haunted; you call it sacred.” Grandmother chuckled, placing a cup of tea on a saucer beside me. “When your father took you to the Great Cathedral, how did you feel? Frightened, or full of holy awe?” I thought of the gargoyles, the soaring stained glass and colored light . . . the vast space and dim heights . . . the joyous and fiendish and suffering faces, carved in high places and in low, in brightness and shadow. “Both,” I answered. “There you are, then. Haunted and sacred. Maybe they want to mean the same thing, but neither word is big enough.” I”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“Ignorance multiplies itself better than yeast. If we could make bread out of rumors, no one in the world would go hungry.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“Moses?" I asked in surprise, crawling after him up the steep steps. "Do you read the Bible?"

He stopped, gazing down past his elbow at me with a serious face. "Do you suppose that the Elder Folk don't know who makes the trees grow? We've known Him since the beginning.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“When your mind's too restless to think," Grandmother said, "move your hands.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“I said, "Isn't lying a sin?"
"Yes," [Grandmother] answered soberly. "But that wasn't a lie. That was camouflage.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light

“I knew that humans have a gift that is not granted to us in Faery: this gift of giving the heart in devotion to one other soul, and walking together through days of a limited number. This love of which your people are capable. . . It's warmer than the warmest hearth in winter. It's like a meteor, lighting the sky before it passes beyond.”
― Frederic S. Durbin, A Green and Ancient Light