Andy Nelson > Andy's Quotes

“A pretty sight, a lady with a book.”
― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.
Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”
― Henri Nouwen

“It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilization.”
― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

“I wonder if things can happen too early or too late or if everything happens at exactly the right time. If so, how sad and beautiful.”
― Simon Van Booy, The Secret Lives of People in Love

“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”
― William Shakespeare

“I want to do things for people they will never forget. Maybe that’s the best thing I can do in life.”
― Simon Van Booy, The Secret Lives of People in Love

“It had rained, she said, and I imagined the beads of small water on the windshield like a thousand eyes, or each drop a small imperfect reflection of a perfect moment.”
― Simon Van Booy, The Secret Lives of People in Love

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him all good things-trout as well as eternal salvation-come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“We can love completely what we cannot completely understand.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.”
― Norman Maclean, River Runs Through It

“To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - came by grace; and grace comes by art; and art does not come easy”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.”
― Matthew Arnold

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”
― William Blake

“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”
― William Blake