Leif Enger Quotes

Quotes about:

• Love is a strange fact - it hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. It makes no sense at all.

  Leif Enger

  Believe, Love Is, Facts

  Leif Enger (2009). “So Brave, Young, and Handsome: A Novel”, p.32, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  45 Copy quote

• Sometimes heroism is nothing more than patience, curiosity, and a refusal to panic.

  Leif Enger

  Curiosity, Panic, Heroism

  Leif Enger (2009). “So Brave, Young, and Handsome: A Novel”, p.287, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  43 Copy quote

• Fair is whatever God wants to do.

  Leif Enger

  Want, Fairs

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.294, Atlantic Monthly Press

  17 Copy quote

• Once traveling, it's remarkable how quickly faith erodes. It starts to look like something else--ignorance, for example. Same thing happened to the Israelites. Sure it's weak, but sometimes you'd rather just have a map.

  Leif Enger

  Ignorance, Example, Looks

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.134, Atlantic Monthly Press

  9 Copy quote

• Hope is like yeast, you know, rising under warmth.

  Leif Enger

  Rising, Yeast, Knows

  Leif Enger (2007). “Peace Like a River”, p.106, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  8 Copy quote

• Where do you think you’re going?” Dr. Nokes demanded…. “What do you have for directions?” And Dad… said, “I have the substance of things hoped for. I have the anticipation of things unseen

  Leif Enger

  Dad, Thinking, Unseen

  17 Copy quote

• Pride is the rope God allows us all.

  Leif Enger

  Pride, Rope

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.89, Atlantic Monthly Press

  10 Copy quote

• Once in my life I knew a grief so hard I could actually hear it inside, scraping at the lining of my stomach, an audible ache, dredging with hooks as rivers are dredged when someone's been missing too long. I have to think my mother felt something like that.

  Leif Enger

  Mother, Grief, Thinking

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.54, Atlantic Monthly Press

  6 Copy quote

• We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.

  Leif Enger

  Children, War, World

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.4, Atlantic Monthly Press

  6 Copy quote

• Is there a single person on whom I can press belief? No sir. All I can do is say, Here's how it went. Here's what I saw. I've been there and am going back. Make of it what you will.

  Leif Enger

  Saws, Belief, Single Person

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, Atlantic Monthly Press

  9 Copy quote

• I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.

  Leif Enger

  Air, Gold, October

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.40, Atlantic Monthly Press

  14 Copy quote

• Be careful whom you choose to hate. The small and the vulnerable own a protection great enough, if you could but see it, to melt you into jelly. Beware those who reside beneath the shadow of the Wings.

  Leif Enger

  Hate, Wings, Shadow

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.36, Atlantic Monthly Press

  6 Copy quote

• Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the grave - now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time. When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of the earth.

  Leif Enger

  Pain, Real, Climbing Up

  Leif Enger (2007). “Peace Like a River”, p.8, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  11 Copy quote

• My sister, Swede, who often sees to the nub, offered this: People fear miracles because they fear being changed--though ignoring them will change you also. Swede said another thing, too, and it rang in me like a bell: No miracle happens without a witness. Someone to declare, Here's what I saw. Here's how it went. Make of it what you will.

  Leif Enger

  People, Miracle, Bells

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.3, Atlantic Monthly Press

  4 Copy quote

• Good advice is a wise man's friend, of course; but sometimes it just flies on past, and all you can do is wave.

  Leif Enger

  Wise, Past, Men

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.75, Atlantic Monthly Press

  5 Copy quote

• Many a night I woke to the murmer of paper and knew (Dad) was up, sitting in the kitchen with frayed King James - oh, but he worked that book; he held to it like a rope ladder.

  Leif Enger

  Kings, Dad, Book

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.103, Atlantic Monthly Press

  6 Copy quote

• It is one thing to be sick of your own infirmities and another to understand that the people you love most are sick of them also. You are very near then to being friendless in the world.

  Leif Enger

  People, Sick, World

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, Atlantic Monthly Press

  9 Copy quote

• So thoughtlessly we sling on our destinies.

  Leif Enger

  Destiny, Our Destiny

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.28, Atlantic Monthly Press

  7 Copy quote

• Of all facial expressions, which is the worst to have aimed at you? Wouldn't you agree it's disgust?

  Leif Enger

  Expression, Worst, Disgusting

  Leif Enger (2007). “Peace Like a River”, p.134, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

• We see a newborn moth unwrapping itself and announce, Look, children, a miracle! But let an irreversible wound be knit back to seamlessness? We won't even see it, though we look at it every day.

  Leif Enger

  Children, Miracle, Looks

  Leif Enger (2007). “Peace Like a River”, p.202, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

• You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sins, you know, and cry tears while doing it that are genuine as any.

  Leif Enger

  Tears, Cry, Sin

  Leif Enger (2007). “Peace Like a River”, p.179, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

• Let me say something about that word: miracle. For too long it's been used to characterize things or events that, though pleasant, are entirely normal. Peeping chicks at Easter time, spring generally, a clear sunrise after an overcast week--a miracle, people say, as if they've been educated from greeting cards.

  Leif Enger

  Easter, Spring, Long

  Leif Enger (2001). “Peace Like a River”, p.3, Atlantic Monthly Press

  8 Copy quote

• Why is it our failures only show us more clearly the people we are failing?

  Leif Enger

  People, Failing, Shows

  Leif Enger (2009). “So Brave, Young, and Handsome: A Novel”, p.29, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

• Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature.

  Leif Enger

  Pain, Real, People

  Leif Enger (2007). “Peace Like a River”, p.8, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  6 Copy quote

• You can’t kill history. You can’t shoot it with a bullet and watch it recede into whatever lies outside of memory. History is tougher than that—if it’s going to die, it has to die on its own

  Leif Enger

  Memories, Lying, Watches

  Leif Enger (2009). “So Brave, Young, and Handsome: A Novel”, p.143, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  4 Copy quote

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