Quotes from work
The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County
Robert James Waller

The Bridges of Madison County is a 1992 best-selling romance novella by American writer Robert James Waller that tells the story of a married but lonely Italian-American woman living on a 1960s Madison County, Iowa, farm. While her husband and children are away at the State Fair, she engages in an affair with a National Geographic photographer from Bellingham, Washington, who is visiting Madison County to create a photographic essay on the covered bridges in the area. The novel is presented as a novelization of a true story, but it is in fact entirely fictional.

“And in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“The old dreams were good dreams; they didn't work out but I'm glad I had them.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“The heart never forgets, never gives up, the territory marked off for those who came before.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“Complex things are easy to do. Simplicity's the real challenge.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“There are songs that come free from the blue-eyed grass, from the dust of a thousand country roads. This is one of them.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“I sometimes have the feeling you've been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you've dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“So here I am walking around with another person inside of me. Though I think I put it better the day we parted when I said there is a third person we have created from the two of us. And I am stalked now by that other entity.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

“Such physical matters were nice, yet, to him, intelligence and passion born of living, the ability to move and be moved by subtleties of the mind and spirit, were what really counted.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

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