Molly > Molly's Quotes

“Times of mourning displace us from ordinary life.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“What is clear is that meaning may not be something we find. We found no meaning in our son's death, or in the deaths of countless others. The most we could hope was that we might be able to create meaning.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“Recalling this now, I can tell only the husk of the story--a story known inwardly only by those who have experienced such a loss, which we'd wish for no one else to suffer. Those who have not often say, "I can't imagine how you felt, what that was like." I can hardly imagine it either, even having lived through it. Recently, when someone said that, I found myself answering, "Like being burned alive.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“Why do we feel guilty, even when we've done nothing to bring on illness or death--even when we've done everything possible to prevent it? Suffering feels like punishment, as cultural anthropologists observe; no doubt that's one reason why people still tell the story of Adam and Eve, which interprets suffering that way.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“Shaken by emotional storms, I realized that choosing to feel guilt, however painful, somehow seemed to offer reassurance that such events did not happen at random.... If guilt is the price we pay for the illusion that we have some control over nature, many of us are willing to pay it. I was. To begin to release the weight of guilt, I had to let go of whatever illusion of control it pretended to offer, and acknowledge that pain and death are as natural as birth, woven inseparably into our human nature.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“You have no choice about how you feel about this. Your only choice is whether to feel it now or later." Although her comment helped a little at first, during the next twenty-five years I would keep discovering that how much I was able to feel, or not, and when, was not a matter of choice.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“For those who find suffering inevitable--in other words, for any of us who can't dodge and pretend it's not there--acknowledging what actually happens is necessary, even if it takes decades, as it has for me.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“guilt is the price we pay for the illusion that we have some control over nature, many of us are willing to pay it.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion?: A Personal Story

“Meanwhile there was work to do: raising our children, wading through a mass of legal papers, finances, and taxes, and recovering the professional life that was now our sole support, while, at a subterranean level, feeling adrift in dark, unknown waters. And though I'd flared with anger when the priest at Heinz's funeral had warned not to be "angry at God" because of his sudden and violent death, I struggled not to sink under currents of fear, anger, and confusion that roiled an ocean of grief.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion? A Personal Story

“My father scowled, warning that going to graduate school was a crazy idea for a woman. “If you’d been admitted,” he warned, “you’d never get married—you’ll turn into one of those lonely women who carry a briefcase and go to the movies alone! No, do something that really makes sense: take typing and become a secretary, or teach in an elementary school.”
― Elaine Pagels, Why Religion?: A Personal Story

“If there is one thing I've learned in more than seven decades of life, it's that the world is a completely fucked-up place. You never know what's around the corner and it's often something unpleasant.”
― John Boyne, The Heart's Invisible Furies

“It's as if she understood completely the condition of loneliness and how it undermines us all, forcing us to make choices that we know are wrong for us.”
― John Boyne, The Heart's Invisible Furies

“I've always believed that if women could only collectively harness the power that they have then they'd rule the world.”
― John Boyne, The Heart's Invisible Furies

“It's not easy losing someone," she said. "It never goes away, does it?" "The Phantom Pain, they call it," I said. "Like amputees get when they can still feel their missing limbs.”
― John Boyne, The Heart's Invisible Furies

“Every man is afraid of women as far as I can see,” said Julian, displaying an understanding of the universe far beyond his years. “That’s true,” she said. “But only because most men are not as smart as women and yet they continue to hold all the power. They fear a change of the world order.”
― John Boyne, The Heart's Invisible Furies

“I always forget that trying to reason with the unreasonable is... unreasonable.”
― Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

“The problem with this is that if we beat ourselves up after a mistake, we add shame onto the guilt and frustration that we already feel about our mistake. That guilt and frustration can be helpful in moving us forward, but shame...shame keeps us stuck. It's a paralyzing emotion. When we get caught in a shame spiral, we tend to make more of the same kinds of mistakes that caused us shame in the first place".”
― Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

“Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of "Don't Forget!"s and "Remember!"s over us. We don't have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents' meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else's children can swim.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“We don't have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there'll be another one coming along tomorrow.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Boats that stay in the harbor are safe, sweetheart, but that's not what boats were built for.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Have you ever held a three-year-old by the hand on the way home from preschool?"

"No."

"You're never more important that you are then.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“God doesn't protect people from knives, sweetheart. That's why God gave us other people, so we can protect each other.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“We're trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you're supposed to insert USB leads. We're looking for something to cling on to, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We're doing all we can to teach our children how to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine.
Perhaps we hurried past each other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against mine for single moment and then we were gone. I don't know who you are.
But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well.
There'll be another one along tomorrow.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Do you know what the worst thing about being a parent is? That you're always judged by your worst moments. You can do a million things right, but if you do one single thing wrong you're forever that parent who was checking his phone in the park when your child was hit in the head by a swing. We don't take our eyes off them for days at a time, but then you read just one text message and it's as if all your best moments never happened. No one goes to see a psychologist to talk about all the times they weren't hit in the head by a swing as a child. Parents are defined by their mistakes.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Because that was a parent’s job: to provide shoulders. Shoulders for your children to sit on when they’re little so they can see the world, then stand on when they get older so they can reach the clouds, and sometimes lean against whenever they stumble and feel unsure.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“I've learned that it helps to talk about [anxiety]. Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say 'I'm hungover' than if they say 'I'm suffering from anxiety.' But I think we pass people in the street every day who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don't know what it is. Men and women going around for months having trouble breathing and seeing doctor after doctor because they think there's something wrong with their lungs. All because it's so damn difficult to admit that something else is...broken. That it's an ache in our soul, invisible lead weights in our blood, an indescribable pressure in our chest. Our brains are lying to us, telling us we're going to die. But there's nothing wrong with our lungs, Zara.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“It's always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Not knowing is a good place to start.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Mariamma, sometimes when you are most afraid, when you feel most helpless, that is when God is pointing out a path for you.”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

“Child, the past is past, and furthermore it’s different every time I remember it.”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water