Mark Helprin Quotes

“I'm not afraid," Rafi said.
"Why not?"
"If I die tomorrow it will have been useless to have been afraid today.”

“He could say nothing. He had no right to be there, he had already been profoundly changed, he was no good at small talk, she was half naked, it was dawn and he loved her.”

“They're not just dreams. Not anymore, I dream more than I wake now, and, at times, I have crossed over. Can't you see? I've been there.”

“All great discoveries… are products as much of doubt as of certainty, and the two in opposition clear the air for marvelous accidents.”

“She knew words no one had ever heard of, and she used words every day that had been mainly dead or sleeping for hundreds of years.”

“For what can be imagined more beautiful than the sight of a perfectly just city rejoicing in justice alone.”

“And how does God speak to you?"
"In the language of everything that is beautiful.”

“And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.”

“He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.”

“The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.”

“They gave themselves up to the stars the way swimmers can surrender to the waves, and the stars took them without resistance.”

“If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined.”

“She felt as if she knew the stars, and had been among them, or would be.”

“Quite possibly there's nothing as fine as a big freight train starting across country in early summer, Hardesty thought. That's when you learn that the tragedy of plants is that they have roots.”

“… to be paid for one's joy is to steal.”

“He hated it as if he were about to love it—unforgivingly, irrationally, sadly.”

“[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy… Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.”

“A good river is nature's life work in song.”

“Never in his life had Alessandro had to squint in starlight, but now the stars were so bright that at times he had to cover his eyes, and when they burned too brilliantly for keeping still, they sometimes shot across the sky in short bursts. Though these quiet illuminations vanished almost as soon as they had started, they lingered in the eye’s inexact memory of their luminescent paths. Perhaps had they been stronger and more constant, and hung in a dull white line, Alessandro’s heart would not have risen each time he saw them. They were less than little puffs of smoke, their tracks thinner than a hair, the bursts of light mainly a matter of memory.”