Sue Monk Kidd Quotes

“We write to taste life twice," Anais Nin wrote, "in the moment and in retrospection.”

“If you must err, do so on the side of audacity.”

“In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.”

“The words were unexpected, but so incisively true. So much of prayer is like that - an encounter with a truth that has sunk to the bottom of the heart, that wants to be found, wants to be spoken, wants to be elevated into the realm of sacredness.”

“I'll write this all down for you," I said. "I'll put it in a story." I don't know if that's what he wanted to ask me, but it's something everybody wants--for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.”

“That's what I told myself five hundred times: impossibility. I can tell you this much: the word is a great big log thrown on the fires of love. ~Page 133.”

“There is a fullness of time for things. You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet. When to let things take their course.”

“Now and then sprays of rain flew over and misted our faces. Every time I refused to wipe away the wetness. It made the world seem so alive to me. I couldn't help but envy the way a good storm got everyone's attention.”

“Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself. That's what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and my shame at the same time.”

“It was the in-between time, before day leaves and night comes, a time I’ve never been partial to because of the sadness that lingers in the space between going and coming.”

“I wished she'd been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don't give up their children.”

“women made the best beekeepers 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting.”

“Actually, you can be bad at something… but if you love doing it, that will be enough. - August Boatwright”

“Did you know there are thirty-two names for love in one of the Eskimo languages?" August said. "And we just have this one. We are so limited, you have to use the same word.”

“We are so limited, you have to use the same word for loving Rosaleen as you do for loving Coke with peanuts. Isn't that a shame we don't have many more ways to say it?”

“It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.”

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.”

“After you get stung, you can't get unstung
no matter how much you whine about it.”

“The world will give you that once in awhile, a brief timeout; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.”

“The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days.”

“All my life I've thought I needed someone to complete me, now I know I need to belong to myself.”

“People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It'shard.”

“There is nothing perfect. There is only life.”

“When it's time to die, go ahead and die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid.”

“Sunset is the saddest light there is.”

“And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.”

“You can go other places, all right - you can live on the other side of the world, but you can't ever leave home”

“There's nothing like a song about lost love to remind you how everything precious can slip from the hinges where you've hung it so careful.”

“Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.”

“I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.”

“You gotta imagine what's never been.”

“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.”

“It's your time to live, don't mess it up.”

“I can't think of anything I'd rather have more than somebody lovin' me.”

“In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional.”

“It shocks me how I wish for… what is lost and cannot come back.”

“History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”

“You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.”

“I didn't know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.”

“Nothing is fair in this world. You might as well get that straight right now”

“To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.”

“It was the first time I'd ever said the words to another person, and the sound of them broke open my heart.”

“It's something everybody wants-for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.”

“You have to find a mother inside yourself. We all do. Even if we already have a mother, we still have to find this part of ourselves inside”

“I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone's joy seemed to double it?”

“I know you've run away - everybody gets the urge to do that some time - but sooner or later you'll want to go home.”

“You can tell which girls lack mothers by the look of their hair…”

“We can't think of changing our skin color. Change the world - that's how we gotta think.”

“Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it's social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.”

“People in general would rather die than forgive. It'shard. If God said in plain language. "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.”

“It was the oldest sound there was. Souls flying away.”

“My body might be a slave, but not my mind. For you, it's the other way round.”

“There's no pain on earth that doesn't crave a benevolent witness.”

“What's wrong with living in a dream world? You have to wake up.”

“There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.”

“If you aren't giving people something to talk about, you've become too dull.”

“My mother's life was way too heavy for me.”

“you got to figure out which end of the needle you’re gon be, the one that’s fastened to the thread or the end that pierces the cloth.”

“And I was struck all at once how life was out there going through its regular courses, and I was suspended, waiting, caught in a terrible crevice between living my life and not living it.”

“I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they’re being kind. I didn’t fall – I dove.”

“People who think dying is the worst thing don't know a thing about life.”

“Look, I know you meant well creating the world and all, but how could you let it get away from you like this? How come you couldn't stick with your original idea of paradise? People's lives were a mess.”

“I'm tired of carrying around the weight of the world. I'm just going to lay it down now. It's my time to die, and it's your time to live. Don't mess it up.”

“Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it.”

“I believe in the goodness of imagination.”

“People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different.”