Miriam Toews Quotes

• Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life?

  Miriam Toews

  Beautiful, Lying, Helping

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  49 Copy quote

• I learned another thing, which is that just because someone is eating the ashes of your protagonist doesn't mean you stop telling the story.

  Miriam Toews

  Mean, Ashes, Stories

  Miriam Toews (2014). “All My Puny Sorrows”, p.173, Faber & Faber

  25 Copy quote

• It’s hard to grieve in a town where everything that happens is God’s will. It’s hard to know what to do with your emptiness when you’re not supposed to have emptiness.

  Miriam Toews

  Grieving, Towns, Emptiness

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  9 Copy quote

• I had a thought, on the way home from the rock field, that the things we don't know about a person are the things that make them human, and it made me feel sad to think that, but sad in that reassuring way that some sadness has, a sadness that says welcome home in twelve different languages.

  Miriam Toews

  Sadness, Home, Thinking

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  9 Copy quote

• Things shouldn't hinge on so very little. Sneeze and you're highway carnage. Remove one tiny stone and you're an avalanche statistic. But I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how. And in a way that's kind of relaxing.

  Miriam Toews

  Life, Understanding, Stones

  FaceBook post by Miriam Toews from Jul 07, 2011

  10 Copy quote

• But love, like a mushroom high compared with the buzz from cheap weed, outlasts grief.

  Miriam Toews

  Weed, Grief, Mushrooms

  Miriam Toews (2014). “A Complicated Kindness”, p.186, Faber & Faber

  7 Copy quote

• It's raining questions around here. A person could drown in them.

  Miriam Toews

  Rain, Persons

  Miriam Toews (2014). “A Complicated Kindness”, p.76, Faber & Faber

  8 Copy quote

• There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.

  Miriam Toews

  Depression, Dark, Mirrors

  Miriam Toews (2001). “Swing Low: A Life”, p.179, Arcade Publishing

  21 Copy quote

• But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build empires with that, gentlemen.

  Miriam Toews

  Girl, Home, Gentleman

  4 Copy quote

• Her faith in a loving and forgiving God is strong, but she worships laughter.

  Miriam Toews

  Strong, Laughter, Forgiving God

  Miriam Toews (2013). “Swing Low”, p.72, Faber & Faber

  12 Copy quote

• I love road trips. You get into this Zen rhythm; throw sense of time out the window.

  Miriam Toews

  Road Trip, Window, Rhythm

  7 Copy quote

• Life being what it is, one dreams not of revenge. One just dreams.

  Miriam Toews

  Dream, Revenge, Just A Dream

  4 Copy quote

• Conversing with children is a fine art.... An art form that demands large amounts of both honesty and misdirection. Or maybe discretion is a better word.

  Miriam Toews

  Art, Children, Honesty

  15 Copy quote

• The other day I found her passport in her drawer when I was putting away my dad's laundered handkerchiefs. I wish I hadn't. For the purpose of my story, she should have it with her. I sat on my dad's bed and flipped through page after empty page. No stamps. No exotic locales. No travel-worn smudges or creases. Just the ID information and my mother's black-and-white photo which if it were used in a psychology textbook on the meaning of facial expressions would be labelled: Obscenely, heartbreakingly hopeful.

  Miriam Toews

  Mother, Dad, Black And White

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  4 Copy quote

• Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.

  Miriam Toews

  Asking, Oneself

  Miriam Toews (2013). “Swing Low”, p.57, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• If, along the way, something is gained, then something will also be lost.

  Miriam Toews

  Way, Lost, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• She was becoming sad. There is no joy involved in following others' expectations of yourself

  Miriam Toews

  Expectations, Joy, Becoming

  Miriam Toews (2001). “Swing Low: A Life”, p.69, Arcade Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• It was the first time that we had sort of articulated our major problem. She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other.

  Miriam Toews

  Enemy, Firsts, Problem

  12 Copy quote

• Even a Menno sheltered from the world knows not to stick her tongue into the mouth of a boy who owns an Air Supply record. You might stick your tongue into the mouth of a boy who owned some Emerson, Lake and Palmer, but you would not date him on a regular basis, or openly.

  Miriam Toews

  Boys, Lakes, Air

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  7 Copy quote

• After that we tried thirty-nine times to stand together on the tube until we finally did. It was fun. I liked the falling part, and holding hangs. Relationships were so easy when all you had to work on was standing up together.

  Miriam Toews

  Fun, Fall, Together

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  7 Copy quote

• It bothered me in a kind of Charles Manson way to have a brown smear of blood on my wall but I also liked it because every time I looked at it I was reminded that I was, at that very moment, not bleeding from my face. And those are powerful words of hope, really.

  Miriam Toews

  Wall, Powerful, Blood

  4 Copy quote

• I wondered if it was possible to donate my body to science before I was actually dead. I wondered if a disease were to be named after me what the symptoms would be.

  Miriam Toews

  Would Be, Body, Disease

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  4 Copy quote

• We Poor Cousins don’t care at all though, except for when we’re on welfare, broke, starving, unable to buy cool high-tops for our children or pay for their university tuition or purchase massive fourth homes on private islands with helicopter landing pads. But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build empires with that, gentlemen.

  Miriam Toews

  Girl, Cousin, Children

  4 Copy quote

• A few weeks ago my uncle came over to borrow my dad's socket set and when he asked my dad how he was my dad said oh unexceptional. Living quietly with my disappointments. And how are you

  Miriam Toews

  Uncles, Dad, Disappointment

  Miriam Toews (2004). “A Complicated Kindness: A Novel”, A.A. Knopf Canada

  7 Copy quote

• David Bergen is a master of taut, spare prose that's both erotic and hypnotic. . . .

  Miriam Toews

  Erotic, Masters, Prose

  4 Copy quote

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