Laura Miller

“You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.”
― Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

“I wondered that she should waste so much energy fighting over a little matter like wearing hats in chapel, but then I told myself that, after all, life was like that for most of us -- the small unpleasantness rather than the great tragedies; the little useless longings rather than the great renunciations and dramatic love affairs of history or fiction.”
― Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

“Often as she was painting she found herself drifting back through her past like someone wandering through an old house. She thought of her father, who used to take her for neighborhood walks on Sundays when she was a child so that her mother, already an invalid, could get her rest. “Notice the rust stains below those eaves,” he would say. “Below Mrs. Webb’s eaves. I don’t know how often I’ve told her she needs to have her gutters cleaned.” And once, when it began to rain, “Have you ever wondered where rain comes from?” “No, not really,” she had said bluntly, but he had told her anyhow—all about evaporation, condensation…Now she saw that he had adored her, and she felt a deep wave of regret for her failure to realize that before.”
― Anne Tyler, French Braid

“I pulled myself up and told myself to stop these ridiculous thoughts, wondering why it is that we can never stop trying to analyse the motives of people who have no personal interest in us, in the vain hope of finding that perhaps they may have just a little after all.”
― Barbara Pym, Excellent Women