Chris Bohjalian Quotes

• Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially--romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Memories, Should, Treated

  Twitter post from Nov 16, 2016

  46 Copy quote

• With age comes acumen. With experience comes insight.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Age, Acumen, Insight

  Chris Bohjalian (2010). “Secrets of Eden: A Novel”, p.325, Crown

  17 Copy quote

• Life is filled with small moments that seem prosaic until one has the distance to look back and see the chain of large moments they unleashed.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Distance, Looks, Small Moments

  FaceBook post by Chris Bohjalian from Jun 04, 2013

  8 Copy quote

• Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies you can imagine. . .and then make them plausible.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Lying, Writing, Interesting

  "Advice to Aspiring Writers". chrisbohjalian.com.

  8 Copy quote

• And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Dream, Past, Trying

  FaceBook post by Chris Bohjalian from Apr 09, 2016

  6 Copy quote

• But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?

  Chris Bohjalian

  Doe, Lines, Matter

  FaceBook post by Chris Bohjalian from Apr 04, 2015

  15 Copy quote

• My grandparents, like many genocide survivors, took most of their stories to their graves.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Grandparent, Survivor, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• He recalls what that first German soldier said to his major: No God-not yours or mine-approves of what you're doing.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Soldier, Firsts, Said

  Chris Bohjalian (2012). “The Sandcastle Girls”, p.132, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Memories, Want, Sometimes

  "Secrets of Eden". Book by Chris Bohjalian, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

• A single, ordinary person still can make a difference - and single, ordinary people are doing precisely that every day.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Differences, People, Making A Difference

  4 Copy quote

• The world is filled with human toxins -- not the darkness that we all occasionally crave, but actually people who are so unwilling to bask in the angelic light that is offered us all that they grow poisonous -- and you can pray for their eventual recovery and healing. And sometimes those prayers will be answered. But sometimes these individuals have been vaccinated against goodness and against angels and they are so unwilling to give an inch to their God that often they never (and I use this expression absolutely literally) see the light.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Prayer, Recovery, Angel

  4 Copy quote

• He defined himself almost wholly in the negative: It was not who he was, it was who he was not.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Negative, Defined

  Chris Bohjalian (2011). “The Night Strangers”, p.28, Broadway Books

  7 Copy quote

• I have lived with magic and without magic, and I can tell you with certainty that a life with magic is better.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Magic, Certainty, I Can

  FaceBook post by Chris Bohjalian from Oct 08, 2015

  4 Copy quote

• No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Alive, Said

  Chris Bohjalian (2002). “Midwives: A Novel”, p.147, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• My wife and I would be very comfortable having a baby at home, or using one of the terrific nurse-midwives at the hospital.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Baby, Home, Nurse

  "Author Q&A". Penguin Random House Interview, www.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  4 Copy quote

• As a novelist, there are three phone calls you never expect to receive in your lifetime because if you waited for them you would grow despairing - one calling from Stockholm with a Swedish accent, one from the NBA, and one from Oprah Winfrey.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Phones, Nba, Phone Calls

  4 Copy quote

• The reality is that most of North America knows next to nothing of the 20th centurys first genocide - the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the First World War.

  Chris Bohjalian

  War, Reality, America

  5 Copy quote

• Now it is you who everyone presumes is so fragile. Wounded. Scarred. Maybe they're right. Perhaps you are. A nursery rhyme comes into your head, and, like an egg, you allow yourself to topple onto your side, your legs still pulled hard against your torso. You lie like that a long while, watching the chrome shell of the tape measure sparkle until the sun moves.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Lying, Moving, Your Side

  Chris Bohjalian (2011). “The Night Strangers”, p.65, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

• As Jeremy Bentham had asked about animals well over two hundred years ago, the question was not whether they could reason or talk, but could they suffer? And yet, somehow, it seemed to take more imagination for humans to identify with animal suffering than it did to conceive of space flight or cloning or nuclear fusion. Yes, she was a fanatic in the eyes of most of the country. . .Mostly, however, she just lacked patience for people who wouldn't accept her belief that humans inflicted needless agony on the animals around them, and they did so in numbers that were absolutely staggering.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Country, Eye, Animal

  FaceBook post by Chris Bohjalian from Nov 15, 2013

  4 Copy quote

• My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Mother, Hurt, Healing

  FaceBook post by Chris Bohjalian from May 09, 2015

  4 Copy quote

• Dead … might not be quiet at all.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Might, Quiet

  Chris Bohjalian (2011). “The Night Strangers”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• When it seems you have nothing at all to live for, death is not especially frightening.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Frightening, Seems

  Chris Bohjalian (2012). “The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel”, p.101, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

• The honest answer is more complex. On some level I was sent. Or inspired. Or called. But my calling, such as it was, wasn't a single booming invitation from above (really, is it ever?).

  Chris Bohjalian

  Calling, Answers, Levels

  Chris Bohjalian (2010). “Secrets of Eden”, p.36, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.

  Chris Bohjalian

  Writing, Games, May

  FaceBook post by Chris Bohjalian from Jul 29, 2016

  4 Copy quote

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