Quotes about grace
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“America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.”

James Ellroy (1948) Novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist

“Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Reluctance", st. 4 (1913)
1910s

Love, Heart, Season

“If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus’ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Love, Law, Motivation

“And because people are stupid and use their noses only for blowing, but believe absolutely anything they see with their eyes, they will say it is because this is a girl with beauty and grace and charm.”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

People, Stupidity, Beauty, Girl

“His Grace was at her side, and lifted her down from the chair.
"My enfant," he said, "duchesses do not dance on chairs, nor do they call their brothers 'imbécile'."
Léonie's twinkled irrepressibly.
"I do," she said firmly.”

Georgette Heyer book These Old Shades

Source: These Old Shades

Dance

“And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
From that same love this vindicating grace,
To live on still in love, and yet in vain”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

Source: Sonnets from the Portuguese

Love

“Then you're a bigger fool than I thought. Since when has any man ever been worthy of the woman he loved? It's only by God's grace that they love us in spite of ourselves.”

Teresa Medeiros (1962) American writer

Source: The Bride and the Beast

Love, God, Fools

“Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Mountain

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Love, Happiness, Travel, Gratitude

“God is the Champion at bringing people from a place of destruction to a place of total victory. As they reach that place of victory they become trophies of his grace. and they are set on the display as a fragrant reminder of God's goodness.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Beauty for Ashes: Receiving Emotional Healing

God, People, Victory

“You know, I would date, if I could find a man worth shaving my legs for. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

“By "guts" I mean, grace under pressure”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Variant: Courage is grace under pressure.

“If I didn't know the ending of a story, I wouldn't begin. I always write my last lines, my last paragraph first, and then I go back and work towards it. I know where I'm going. I know what my goal is. And how I get there is God's grace.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

God

“But sometimes the world disrobes, slips its dress off a shoulder, stops time for a beat. If we look up at that moment, it's not due to any ability of ours to pierce the darkness, it's the world's brief bestowal. The catastrophe of grace.”

Anne Michaels book Fugitive Pieces

Source: Fugitive Pieces

World, Time

“Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.”

Jim Butcher book Academ's Fury

Source: Academ's Fury

Women

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

Brennan Manning book The Ragamuffin Gospel

p. 11 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 <br class="br">1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)

Life, God, Light, Learning

“The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Christ

“All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“… if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Life, God

“Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Costly Grace, p 43.
Costly Grace
Context: Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins. The church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part of that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God.
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.

“In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Night Road

Time, Sea

“You're not an idiot. You're just eccentric. (Selena)
That's what they said about Mary Todd Lincoln. Until they locked her up. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

“Grace is the power of the Holy Spirit coming to us free of charge to enable you to do with ease what you could never do on your own with any amount of struggle and effort.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Effort

“The heads of strong old age are beautiful / Beyond all grace of youth”

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) American poet

Youth, Age, Beauty, Strong

“Don't sulk. For someone with all the grace and coordination of a pregnant wildebeest, you did great.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying “Why?”

Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher

Source: Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ

God, Pain, Children, Heart

“Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past—the past of others, loaded onto their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Children, Past, Selfishness

“Nothing fosters courage like a clear grasp of grace… & nothing fosters fear like an ignorance of mercy”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions

Fear, Courage

“Nor did I need anyone's pity, but I would accept it with grace, because I have been well trained. Rudeness was a sign of weakness. Grace stemmed from power, the powere to accept anything and move on.”

Robin Wasserman book Skinned

Source: Skinned

Training

“If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Sisters of Mercy"
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
Context: When they lay down beside me I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

Love, Life, Tear, Season

“We all do foolish things when we are in love. Don't we, your grace?”

Judith McNaught book Whitney, My Love

Source: Whitney, My Love

Love

“Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Water, Parting

“It's settled, then," Grace said. She turned back to Nick. "Take the Jag to the car wash and for heaven's sake clean the McDonald's Happy Meal boxes out of it."

"Hey," Nick said, his face offended. "That's a low blow. Those boxes are collectibles.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Night Play

Happiness, Cars, Box

“the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

Love, God, Faith

“All my life, since I came to the Institute, you were the mirror of my soul. I saw the good in me in you. In your eyes alone I found grace. When you are gone from me, who will see me like that?”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Life, Soul

“When life doesn't meet your expectations, it was important to take it with grace.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: When Demons Walk

Life

“I would far rather convey grace than explain it.”

Philip Yancey book What's So Amazing About Grace?

Source: What's So Amazing About Grace?

“All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories

People, Support, Thinking

“Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Love, Beauty

“… I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

Love, God

“Hunting hawks do not belong in cages, no matter how much a man covets their grace, no matter how golden the bars. They are far more beautiful soaring free. Heartbreakingly beautiful.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The warrior's Apprentice

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

Beauty

“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: The Alphabet of Grace (1970)

Life, Forgiveness, Sleep, Night

“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.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

“His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.”

Hans Christian Andersen The Ugly Duckling

Fairy Tales (1835)
Source: The Ugly Duckling

Beauty, Bird

“The truest grace is not to forgive, but to have never found fault.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Forgiveness

“Hearthstone Passes Out Even More than Jason Grace (Though I Have No Idea Who That Is)”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Idea

“[Jason] faltered when he looked at Leo, who was mimicking taking notes with an air pencil.
“Go on, Professor Grace!” he said, wide-eyed. “I wanna get an A on the test.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“She couldn’t very well let him join her in bed like that.
Sure you could.
No I can’t.
Please?
Hush, self, let me think.’ (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Thinking

“Your destiny grows clearer, Jason Grace. When the choice comes again- storm or fire- remember me. And do not despair.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Despair

“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Life, God

“Cupid, you worthless bastard, I summon you to human form! (Julian)
Gee, I can't imagine why he wouldn't respond to that. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Imagination

“Thou art coming to a King, large petitions with thee bring, for His grace and power are such none can ever ask too much.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

Variant: Thou art coming to a King,
large petitions with thee bring,
for His grace and pow'r are such
none can ever ask too much.

Art

“Grace is the most perplexing, powerful force in the universe, and, I believe, the only hope for our twisted, violent planet.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Hope, Universe

“We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

“Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live.”

Jacqueline Winspear (1955) English writer

Way

“The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face, 19
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,—
And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!”

George Gordon Byron book The Bride of Abydos

Canto I, Stanza 6; this can be compared to: "The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love", Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy I. 3, line 16; also: "Oh, could you view the melody / Of every grace / And music of her face", Richard Lovelace, Orpheus to Beasts; "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix.
The Bride of Abydos (1813)

Love, Music, Soul, Light

“Yes, Jason Grace." Favonius arched an eyebrow. "I fell in love with a. Does that shock you?”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Love

“We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

“Lord Bacchus, do you remember me? I helped you with that missing leopard in Sonoma."
Bacchus scratched his stubbly chin. "Ah… yes. John Green."
"Jason Grace."
"Whatever," the god said.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

God, Help

“I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Wisdom, Beauty, Nature, Past

“Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 9.
Source: Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible

Affliction

“Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 223.

God, Laughter

“She walks like a ballerina in dance slippers, her feet as articulate as hands, a little vessel of grace moving out into the fog.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Dance

“Honey, you need to get laid. (Selena)
Why don’t you speak a little louder, Lanie? I don’t think the guys in Canada were able to hear you. (Grace)
Oh, I don’t know. They’re probably headed south even as we speak. (Waiter)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Guy, Thinking

“they walked with a pedatory grace…. one of them ripped off their hood and said, "my name is Tally Youngblood and is a special circumstance"….”

Scott Westerfeld (1963) American science fiction writer

“I think he’s handling it with grace. A lot of teenage boys would sulk, or lurk around under your window with a boom box.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Boy, Thinking, Box

“Happiness is the experience of living every moment with love, grace and gratitude.”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Love, Happiness, Gratitude

“Whenever I see grace, I’m moved.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

“May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Love, Future

“In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace--and because you know in your lying cheater's heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get.”

Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her

Source: This Is How You Lose Her

Hope, Feeling, Lying, Heart

“Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

God, Pleasure

“I’d seen him fight before, but it never got old. He was captivating. He never stopped moving. Every action was graceful and lethal. He was a dancer of death.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Death, Fight

“By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which other are just as entitled to as we are.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer book The Cost of Discipleship

Source: Discipleship (1937), The Disciple and Unbelievers, p. 185.
Source: The Cost of Discipleship

Evil

“I hate horses. I know people who think that they are noble, graceful animals, but regardless of what a horse looks like from a distance, never forget that it's as likely to step on your foot as look at you.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

Hate, People, Thinking, Animals

“You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Wisdom, Age, Forgiveness

“If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.”

Sena Jeter Naslund (1942) American writer

Source: Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer

Life, Suffering, Time, Dead

“Behind her, Jace moved out into the water with a contained grace that barely rippled the surface. Simon behind him, was splashing and cursing.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Water

“You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though theologians insist that grace is freely given, the truth is that sometimes you pay for it through the nose. And you can't pay your child's way.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Life, Pain, Truth, Way

“The queen was settling on the edge of the bed, ungainly with hesitation and at the same time exquisite in her grace, like a heron landing in a treetop.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Time

“A woman who will be like a rock in a riverbed, enduring without complaint, her grace not sullied butby the turbulence that washes over her.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Grace? Are you tipsy? (Selena)
Maybe just comfortably toasty. Pop tart toasty. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

“You have the optimism of a child. (Julian)
Peter Pan all the way. (Grace)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Way, Optimism

“He took one look at me and said, ‘Damn, you cleaned up better than I thought you would.’ (Grace)
I worry about the men of your time, Grace. They all seem to be great fools. (Julian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Men, Fools, Time

“You can have the other words — chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

"Sand Dabs, Five"
Winter Hours (1999)
Context: You can have the other words — chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.

Chance