Quotes by Canadian Authors - Page 66

We're all blessed and we're all blighted, Chief Inspector," said Finney. "Everyday each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?
Louise Penny
Stay open to opportunity -- you never know where your next important connection will be made.
Nicholas Boothman
…because I was only eleven years old, I was wrapped in the best cloak of invisibility in the world.
Alan Bradley
Self-affirm—build yourself up with honest and genuine praise.
Lorii Myers
The right attitude is everything!
Lorii Myers
Don’t build roadblocks out of assumptions.
Lorii Myers
Having all the answers just means you've been asking boring questions.
Joey Comeau
There is a world of difference between being clever and being right.
Ian Driscoll
I often think we should have tattooed on the back of whatever hand we use to shoot or write, 'I might be wrong.
Louise Penny
There is too wide a gap, for most of us, between what we say and what we mean. Between our words and our thoughts. The first thing the Prophet Isaiah said when he saw the living and exalted God was, “Woe is me, I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Isaiah was one of the most godly men who ever walked the earth. But seeing God, he sees also, abrupt and stark and grief-making, his own duplicity. Then God does what only God can do: he sears his lips clean (Isaiah 6:6-7). And herein lies our hope: truly seeing God, we truly see ourselves, in all our woe-begotten duplicity; but crying out to God, we are truly and greatly helped.
Mark Buchanan
The counselee should be aware that you are not God. Better yet, she should be aware that you are aware that you are not God.
James MacDonald
If we had not experienced our deep sinfulness and Jesus' deep forgiveness through the cross, we will not love others well in the midst of their struggles. If we do not see the beauty and glory of God in our own redemption, we will not be able to offer a compelling redemptive vision for those who are hopeless and who doubt God's love for them.
James MacDonald
It can be unhelpful to wax eloquent about the inerrancy of Scripture without an accompanying acknowledgment that, while Scripture may be inerrant, there are no inerrant interpreters of Scripture.
Wendy Vanderwal-Gritter
Value the wisdom of humility, as well as the sense of perspective it gives you.
Chris Hadfield
Abilene had gone from boomtown to Bible Belt, from whorehouses to schoolmarms, without any of the intervening phases.
David Brooks
Her characters tend to err when they reject the grubby and complex circumstances of everyday life for abstract and radical notions. They thrive when they work within the rooted spot, the concrete habit, the particular reality of their town and family.
David Brooks
They possess the self- effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world:
David Brooks
People who are humble about their own nature are moral realists. Moral realists are aware that we are all built from “crooked timber”— from Immanuel Kant’s famous line, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.
David Brooks
[T]he road to character is built by confronting your own weakness.
David Brooks
We could never agree about Boogie and I didn't share Miriam's reverence for professors. In fact, just in case I haven't mentioned it before, the pride of my office wall is my framed high-school graduation certificate, lit from above. Miriam has reproached me for it. "Take it down, darling," she once pleaded. But it still hangs there.
Mordecai Richler
I do not desire power, but rather to submit to the will of Elamm’.
Benita J. Prins
As she rounded a corner one of her favourite songs came on the radio, and sunlight filtered through the trees the way it does with lace curtains, reminding her of her grandmother, and tears began to slide down her cheeks. Not for her grandmother, who was then still very much among the living, but because she felt an enveloping happiness to be alive, a joy made stronger by the certainty that someday it would all come to an end. It overwhelmed her, made her pull the car to the side of the road. Afterwards she felt a little foolish, and never spoke to anyone about it. Now, however, she knows she wasn’t being foolish. She realizes that for no particular reason she stumbled into the core of what it is to be human. It’s a rare gift to understand that your life is wondrous, and that it won’t last forever.
Steven Galloway
There's something satisfying to proclaiming humility while knowing just how important you truly are.
Michael R. Fletcher
Ironic that those most holy are least likely to see themselves that way.
Mark Buchanan
If there is one single reason why good people turn evil, it is because they fail to recognize God’s ownership over their kingdom, their vocation, their resources, their abilities, and above all their lives.
Erwin W. Lutzer
In the history of the world many souls have been, are, and will be, and with a little reflection this is marvelous and not depressing. Many jerks are made gloomy about it, for they think quantity buries them alive. That's just crazy. Numbers are very dangerous, but the main thing about them is that they humble your pride. And that's good.
Saul Bellow
Hi, I’m Jude Ryder Jamieson,” he began, extending his hand. I took it, shaking it. He held onto it when I tried to pull it back. “My mom left when I was thirteen. My dad’s serving a life sentence for killing a young kid. I spent the last five years in a boys’ home being bullied, beat, and abused by the kids, the staff, and even the goddamn dog. I sold drugs. I did drugs. I got arrested. A lot. I screwed a lot of faceless women.” He paused, sucking in a breath. “And then I met one whose face I couldn’t forget. I fell in love with her. I hurt her because I fell in love with her and was afraid she was going to leave me the way everyone else had.” He lifted his other hand, cradling mine between his. “I still love her.
Nicole Williams
You can see when someone's been hurt the way I was. It's obvious. Something changes in their eyes; pain becomes their center, even when they try to hide it.
Cheryl Rainfield
As far as I can figure, the way that it works is this: everyone has something that happened to them. The thing that we each carry. And you can see it in people, if you look. See it in the way someone walks, in the way someone takes a compliment, sometimes you can just see it in someone’s eyes. In one moment of desperation, of fear, in one quick moment you can see that thing that happened. Everyone has it. The thing that keeps you up at night, or makes you not trust people, or stops love. The thing that hurts. And to stop it, to stop the hurt, you have to turn it into a story. And not just a story you play over and over for yourself, but a story that you tell. A story’s not a story unless you tell it. And once you tell it, it’s not yours anymore. You give it away. And once you give it away, it’s not something that hurts you anymore, it’s something that helps everyone who hears it. It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to explain. It’s probably best if we just show you how it works.
Daniel MacIvor
Look, I don't know who has been telling you over the years that you aren't worthy of love and happiness, but they're idiots. We all deserve it. And if people get hurt along the way, that's life. We've all been hurt. Doesn't that make love more crucial to our lives?
Karina Halle
All the same, it strikes me as unfair that I still have to defend myself against her moral judgements. My continuing need for her approbation is pathetic. Twice now I have stopped myself on the street to remonstrate with her, a crazy old coot talking to himself.
Mordecai Richler
No one loathed her more than she and thus none could truly harm her.
Michael R. Fletcher
Cripples are not the stuff of romance. Only Lord Byron, dragging his club foot, springs to mind as an exception to the rule, but such a failing in a man is regarded as interesting, even provocative, rather than disfiguring. Women must submit to a more exacting measure.
Mordecai Richler
She has shared her hurt with me, and now a little bit of it is mine. This thing she couldn't bear alone, I can bear some of it, I can be hurt, too, and here's the thing you'd never expect about this kind of second-hand-hurt - it feels so good, it makes you feel whole, it makes you feel necessary, and even if you don't realize it right away, you'll find, as time passes, as the bearing of the hurt further intoxicates you, makes you more fully hers and she more fully yours, that you'll do anything to keep it; you'll say anything, you'll believe anything, you'll compromise anything, you'll build your self-worth around that tiny grain of hurt she lent you, and in return you'll hold her chin in your hand and run your thumb over the corner of her mouth and tickle the back of her earlobe with your finger and whisper to her over and over and over that "it's okay, it's okay, it's okay -
Jared Young
people say things meant to rip you in half but you hold the power to notturn their words into a knifeand cut yourself
Rupi Kaur
You're all we have left of him.
Charlene Carr
Adapting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.
Hans Selye
I can be hurt, she said, only by people I respect.
Mary Balogh
Moments come & go, but special moments last a lifetime.Make them count!
Mark Hewer
Moments come & moments go, but can last a lifetime in your heart. Make them count!
Mark Hewer
As sure as the driven rain, the sun will shine again!
Mark Hewer
Be grateful for each moment, for we know not which will be our last.
Mark Hewer
Moments come & go, but special moments last a lifetime. Make them count!
Mark Hewer
There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
If you wanted to be average, you would not be reading this book.
Lorii Myers
The pages of a book are given life only as they are opened
L.J. deVet
Never underestimate a clown with a book.
Rawi Hage
The wheel… is an extension of the foot. The book… is an extension of the eye…Clothing, an extension of the skin…Electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system.
Marshall McLuhan
She was certain this trip would be a landslide of regret, anger and resentment, crumbling around a day of sadness.
Shannyn Leah
Her hands moved up his arms and tried to ignore the tingling zapping her skin like the metal edges of the Operation game.
Shannyn Leah
It makes me sad that not every book is good,' I said. 'Not every book can be loved.''But when I pull a book off a shelf, and examine it, turning it this way and that, inspecting the cover, flipping through the pages and glancing at the words as they flash by, a thought here and a sentence there and I know that there is potential between those pages for love. Even if in my opinion the book is bad, someone else may find it good. Isn’t that like love?
Cecil Castellucci
You think writing a book is hard? Wait until you give it to someone to read.
Ken Stark
But here, two thousand miles from home, there was a real shipwreck, a real hope. A choice big enough to change our lives forever.
Gordon Korman
I’m so sorry. I don’t think the etiquette manuals cover this sort of situation.” He leaned in close, his lips all but grazing her neck, and inhaled. “Mmm. You smell good, too.”She nearly choked. Took a step backwards, until her back met cold stone. “Th-thank you.”“That’s better. May I kiss you?” His finger dipped into her shirt collar, stroking the tender nape of her neck.“I d-don’t th-think that’s a good idea.”“Why not? We’re alone.” His hands were at her waist.Her lungs felt tight and much too small. “Wh-what if somebody comes in?”He considered for a moment. “Well, I suppose they’ll think I fancy grubby little boys.
Y.S. Lee
The male frog, in mating season," said Crake, "makes as much noise as it can. The females are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a more powerful frog, one with superior genes. Small male frogs - it's been documented - discover that if they position themselves in empty drainpipes, the pipe acts as a voice amplifier, and the small frog appears much larger than it really is.""So?""So that's what art is, for the artist," said Crake. "An empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid.""Your analogy falls down when it comes to female artists," said Jimmy. "They're not in it to get laid. They'd gain no biological advantage from amplifying themselves, since potential mates would be deterred rather than attracted by this sort of amplification. Men aren't frogs, they don't want women who are ten times bigger than them.""Female artists are biologically confused," said Crake.
Margaret Atwood
There's no such things as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn't matter whether a solution's optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the alternative.
Peter Watts
...and specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god’s, somewhere’s, handiwork.
Nicole Williams
Indeed, not all attacks—especially the bitter and ridiculing kind leveled at Darwin—are offered in good faith, but for practical purposes it is good policy to assume that they are.
Hans Selye
The principle chore of brains is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing [the world] is advantageous so long as it... enhances an organism's chances for survival. Truth, whatever that is, takes the hindmost.
Patricia Churchland
George Williams, the revered evolutionary biologist, describes the natural world as “grossly immoral.” Having no foresight or compassion, natural selection “can honestly be described as a process for maximizing short-sighted selfishness.” On top of all the miseries inflicted by predators and parasites, the members of a species show no pity to their own kind. Infanticide, siblicide, and rape can be observed in many kinds of animals; infidelity is common even in so-called pair-bonded species; cannibalism can be expected in all species that are not strict vegetarians; death from fighting is more common in most animal species than it is in the most violent American cities. Commenting on how biologists used to describe the killing of starving deer by mountain lions as an act of mercy, Williams wrote: “The simple facts are that both predation and starvation are painful prospects for deer, and that the lion's lot is no more enviable. Perhaps biology would have been able to mature more rapidly in a culture not dominated by Judeo-Christian theology and the Romantic tradition. It might have been well served by the First Holy Truth from [Buddha's] Sermon at Benares: “Birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful...”” As soon as we recognize that there is nothing morally commendable about the products of evolution, we can describe human psychology honestly, without the fear that identifying a “natural” trait is the same as condoning it. As Katharine Hepburn says to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
Steven Pinker