“I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.”

— Marilynne Robinson

Last update March 10, 2022. History

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Marilynne Robinson 51

American novelist and essayist 1943

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Context: For me there are no answers, only questions, and I am grateful that the questions go on and on. I don't look for an answer, because I don't think there is one. I'm very glad to be the bearer of a question.

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Context: Just an observation: it is impossible to be both grateful and depressed. Those with a grateful mindset tend to see the message in the mess. And even though life may knock them down, the grateful find reasons, if even small ones, to get up.

“From the earliest memory every day started with prayer and ended with prayer…And it is still in my bloodstream, even though I am not conventionally religious. I am not good at belonging to groups. But doesn’t everyone think about God?”

Celia Paul (1959) British artist

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“In light of knowledge obtained, the happy achievement seems almost a matter of course, and any intelligent student can grasp it without too much trouble. But the years of anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alternations of confidence and exhaustion, and final emergence into light—only those who have experienced it can understand that.”

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“I am sick of the girl who cries 'wolf' all the time. Even though not one of those cries was ever a false alarm”

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“Beware of those who manufacture final answers as they go along, of those who will catch you on their catch-phrases and let you perish in the traps. All the final answers were given in the beginning.”

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Context: Beware of those who manufacture final answers as they go along, of those who will catch you on their catch-phrases and let you perish in the traps. All the final answers were given in the beginning. They stand shining, above and beyond us, but they are always there to be seen. They may be too bright for us, they may be too clear for us. Well then, we must clarify our own eyes. Our task is to grow out until we reach them.

“Even in days of loss and sorry, beauty remains, and I am ever grateful.”

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Attributed

“It seems to me that I may be living too long. Indeed: my nearest relations have all died, and so have some of my best friends, and even some of my best pupils. However, I do not have a reason to complain. I am grateful and happy to be alive, and still be able to continue with my work, if only just. My work seems to me more important than ever.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

As quoted in "At 90, and Still Dynamic : Revisiting Sir Karl Popper and Attending His Birthday Party" by Eugene Yue-Ching Ho, in Intellectus 23 (Jul-Sep 1992) http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tkpw/hk-ies/n23a/

“My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not;
I think thy answers make me what I am.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Source: The Diary of an Old Soul & the White Page Poems

“What sort of arrogance did she have, even to imagine reaching back into the past and making changes? Who am I, she thought, if I dare to answer prayers intended for the gods?”

Orson Scott Card book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996)

“I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.”

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Marilynne Robinson 51

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