Andrew Peterson > Quotes

“Love is not a feeling in your chest; it is bending down to wash another's feet.”
― Andrew Peterson

“Don't just follow your heart. Your heart will betray you.”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“The gospel gives me hope, and hope is not a language the dark voices understand.”
― Andrew Peterson

“Here I sit in the presence of queens and heroes and magic. Yes, magic. It is only when we have grown too old that we fail to see that the Maker’s world is swollen with magic – it hides in plain sight in music and water and even bumblebees”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“I am convinced that poets are toddlers in a cathedral, slobbering on wooden blocks and piling them up in the light of the stained glass. We can hardly make anything beautiful that wasn’t beautiful in the first place. We aren’t writers, but gleeful rearrangers of words whose meanings we can’t begin to know. When we manage to make something pretty, it’s only so because we are ourselves a flourish on a greater canvas. That means there’s no end to the discovery. We may crawl around the cathedral floor for ages before we grow up enough to reach the doorknob and walk outside into a garden of delights. Beyond that, the city, then the rolling hills, then the sea. And when the world of every cell has been limned and painted and sung, we lie back on the grass, satisfied that our work is done. Then, of course, the sun sets and we see above us the dark dome of glittering stars.

On and on it goes, all the way to the lightless borderlands of time and space, which we come to discover in some future age are but the beginnings or endings of a single word spoken from the mouth of God. Some nights, while I traipse down the hill, I imagine that word isn’t a word at all, but a burst of laughter.”
― Andrew Peterson

“When you run out of hope, everything is backwards. Your heart wants the opposite of what it needs.”
― Andrew Peterson, The Warden and the Wolf King

“When children say it’s time to leave, they mean, “It’s time to leave.” When grownups say so, they really mean, “It’s time to begin thinking about leaving sometime in the near future.”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“The burden God places on each of us is to become who we are meant to be. We are most fully ourselves when Christ most fully lives in us and through us. The mother shines brightest with her child in her arms, the father when he forgives his wandering son, and the artist when he or she is drawing attention to grace, by showing the pinprick of light overcoming the darkness in the painting, or the story, or the song. The world knows darkness. Christ came into the world to show us light. I have seen it, have been blinded by it, invaded by it. I will tell its story.”
― Andrew Peterson

“Blood was shed that you three might breathe the good air of life, and if that means you have to miss out on a Zibzy game, then so be it. Part of being a man is putting others' needs before your own.”
― Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

“He wanted to be alone, and he wanted to be found.”
― Andrew Peterson, The Monster in the Hollows

“Love runs stronger than blood. Deeper than any name you could give me." - Maraly”
― Andrew Peterson, The Warden and the Wolf King

“There's just something about the way he sings. It makes me think of when it snows outside, and the fire is warm, and Podo is telling us a story while you're cooking, and there's no place I'd rather be--but for some reason I still feel... homesick.”
― Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

“I'm too angry at you to let you die.”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“He wondered what book he might be reading when he finally breathed his last, and determined to grab a good one as soon as he sensed the end coming so that whoever discovered him would know he had a good taste in literature.”
― Andrew Peterson

“Those of us who write, who sing, who paint, must remember that to a child a song may glow like a nightlight in a scary bedroom. It may be the only thing holding back the monsters. That story may be the only beautiful, true thing that makes it through all the ugliness of a little girl’s world to rest in her secret heart. May we take that seriously. It is our job, it is our ministry, it is the sword we swing in the Kingdom, to remind children that the good guys win, that the stories are true, and that a fool’s hope may be the best kind.”
― Andrew Peterson, Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

“That evil was a nameless evil, an evil whose name was Gnag the Nameless.”
― Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

“Gnag bends things for breaking, and the Maker makes a flourish! Evil digs a pit, and the Maker makes a well! That is his way.”
― Andrew Peterson, The Monster in the Hollows

“She seemed older, no longer shocked that such a thing could happen in the world, but heartbroken because it had. her tears struck Janner as the right kind of tears.”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“A thing resounds when it rings true,
Ringing all the bells inside of you,
Like a golden sky on a summer eve
Your heart is tugging at your sleeve,
And you cannot say why...
There must be more”
― Andrew Peterson

“No, when a king forgets who he is, he looks for himself in the rubble of conquered cities. He is haunted by a bottomless pit in his soul, and he will pour the blood of nations into it until the pit swallows the man himself.”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“In the immortal words of Loshain P'stane, 'If anyone reads this without permission, he will be most certainly and brutally slain. Or at the very least I'll chop off a finger or two. Or three.”
― Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

“Since we were made to glorify God, worship happens when someone is doing exactly what he or she was made to do.”
― Andrew Peterson, Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

“It is true the Shining Isle is smoke and ashes and that darkness is wide over the land. But your long memories have failed you. Of all creatures, you should know that the darkness is seldom complete, and even when it is, the pinprick of light is not long in coming -- and finer for the great shroud that surrounds it.”
― Andrew Peterson, North! or Be Eaten

“He means to make his subjects merciful and wise; sorrow and struggle bringeth both. We will, he tells me, grow by grieving, live by dying, love by losing. The heart itself is the field of battle and the garden green.”
― Andrew Peterson, The Monster in the Hollows

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The Shining Isle exists as surely as the floor you’re standing on. It may be hard to believe, but it’s real, I tell you. Sometimes in the middle of the night, the sun can seem like it was only ever a dream. We need something to remind us that it still exists, even if we can’t see it. We need something beautiful hanging in the dark sky to remind us there is such a thing as daylight. Sometimes, Queen Sara”—Armulyn strummed his whistleharp— “music is the moon.”
― Andrew Peterson, The Warden and the Wolf King

“Lad, it's one thing to be poor in pocket - nothing wrong with that. But poor in heart - that's no good.”
― Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

“Kalmar nodded. "I'm sorry, Papa. I wasn't strong enough."
"None of us are, lad. Me least of all." Esben smiled and took a rattling breath. "But it's weakness that the Maker turns to strength. Your fur is why you alone loved a dying cloven. You alone in all the world knew my need and ministered to my wounds." Esben pulled Kalmar closer and kissed him on the head. "And in my weakness, I alone know your need. Hear me, son. I loved you when you were born. I loved you when I wept in the Deeps of Throg. I loved you even as you sang the song that broke you. And I love you now in the glory of your humility. You're more fit to be the king than I ever was. Do you understand?"
Kalmar shook his head.
Esben smiled and shuddered with pain. "A good answer, my boy. Then do you believe that I love you?"
"Yes, sir. I believe you." Kalmar buried his face in his father's fur.
"Remember that in the days to come. Nia, Janner, Leeli - help him to remember.”
― Andrew Peterson, The Monster in the Hollows

“Even if hope is just a low ember at night, in the morning you can still start a fire.”
― Andrew Peterson

“All I know is that I was blind, but now I see; that though I kick and scream, love is leading me. And every step of the way His grace is making me. With every breath I breathe, He is saving me. And I believe.”
― Andrew Peterson

“It is no small thing to be a Throne Warden of Anniera. They have been sung about by bards for a thousand years and are accorded a place of honor like no other kingdom—like no other king—in the world—not because they’re lords, but because they’re servants.”
― Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness