Witness Quotes - Page 34

• Not only did I rediscover every experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as well—as though they’d been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as any flesh and blood occurrence. What had only been imagination in life, now became tangible, each fantasy a full reality. I lived them all—while, at the same time, standing to the side, a witness to their, often, intimate squalor. A witness cursed with total objectivity.

  Richard Matheson

  Real, Objectivity, Blood

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• …Those who’ve marred their appearance in any way by their actions in life aren’t forced to witness that marring. If they were, they’d become self-conscious and be unable to concentrate on improving themselves.

  Richard Matheson

  Self, Way, Action

  Richard Matheson (2007). “What Dreams May Come: A Novel”, p.94, Macmillan

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• You were born to lead as mothers and fathers because nowhere is righteous leadership more crucial than in the family. You were born to lead as priesthood and auxiliary leaders, as heads of communities, companies, and even nations. You were born to lead as men and women willing 'to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places' because that's what a true leader does.

  Sheri L. Dew

  Mother, Father, Men

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• The first stars tremble as if shimmering in green water. Hours must pass before their glimmer hardens into the frozen glitter of diamonds. I shall have a long wait before I witness the soundless frolic of the shooting stars. In the profound darkness of certain nights I have seen the sky streaked with so many trailing sparks that it seemed to me a great gale must be blowing through the outer heavens.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Stars, Night, Sky

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• Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Courage, Names, Everyday

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• ...Bear true witness, even if it be against yourselves, your parents or your family.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Parent, Bears, Ifs

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• Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: 'As God is my witness, and God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going to lick me. I'm going to live through this, and when it's over, I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill - as God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again.

  Margaret Mitchell

  Yankees, Hunger, Stealing

  Margaret Mitchell, Pat Conroy (2008). “Gone with the Wind”, p.593, Simon and Schuster

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• 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

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• Remembering our past, carrying it around with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self. To ensure that the self doesn’t shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends. They are our mirror; our memory; we ask nothing of them but that they polish the mirror from time to time so we can look at ourselves in it.

  Milan Kundera

  Memories, Flower, Past

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• The conclusion I have reached is that, above all, dogs are witnesses. They are allowed access to our most private moments. They are there when we think we are alone. Think of what they could tell us. They sit on the laps of presidents. They see acts of love and violence, quarrels and feuds, and the secret play of children. If they could tell us everything they have seen, all of the gaps of our lives would stitch themselves together.

  Carolyn Parkhurst

  Dog, Children, Thinking

  Carolyn Parkhurst (2003). “The Dogs of Babel”, Large Print Press

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• She sat keenly white and still among them, a witness to everything--maybe determining nothing, possibly judging it all.

  John Irving

  White, Judging, Sat

  John Irving (2012). “The World According To Garp”, p.48, Random House

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• Heavenly witnesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are designed to sanctify our fears, crimes, and aspirations, also reveal them for what they are.

  James A. Baldwin

  Heaven, Legends, Crime

  "Letter from a Region in My Mind". www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

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• Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment. If one recognizes the difference and prepares oneself - it is extraordinarily brave. Because when it comes to certain human miseries, the only witnesses should be the pavement and maybe the trees. (Gareth van Meer)

  Marisha Pessl

  Differences, Tree, Brave

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• Our books will bear witness for or against us, our books reflect who we are and who we have been, our books hold the share of pages granted to us from the Book of Life. By the books we call ours we will be judged

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Pages, Who We Are

  Alberto Manguel (2011). “The Library at Night”, p.183, Vintage Canada

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• Objection!" Metz shouts. Grounds?" the judge asks. Well...he's my witness!

  Jodi Picoult

  Judging, Wells, Objections

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• Just each of us being me, me, me first. The murderer, the victim, the witness each of us thinks our role is the lead. Probably that goes for anybody in the world.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Thinking, Roles, World

  "Invisible Monsters". Book by Chuck Palahniuk, September 17, 1999.

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• Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can every quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she were the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.

  Ian Mcewan

  Religious, Art, Simple

  "Atonement". Book by Ian McEwan. Reviewed in "The Wounds of Love" by Jonathan Yardley, www.washingtonpost.com. March 17, 2002.

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• When witnesses concoct lies, they often miss the obvious.

  John Grisham

  Lying, Missing, Obvious

  Twitter post from Jul 12, 2016

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• We are sometimes told that we are not a biblical church. We are a biblical church. This wonderful testament of the Old World, this great and good Holy Bible is one of our standard works. We teach from it. We bear testimony of it. We read from it. It strengthens our testimony. And we add to that this great second witness, the Book of Mormon, the testament of the New World, for as the Bible says, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall [all things] be established" (2 Cor. 13:1).

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Book, Biblical, Two

  "Selections from Addresses of President Gordon B. Hinckley". Ensign magazine, p. 64, March 2001.

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• At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

  Margaret Atwood

  Running, Fall, Ideas

  Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Blind Assassin: A Novel”, p.95, Anchor

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• For this too I learned, that a storyteller's tale may end, but history goes on always. These events, so distant in legend, play a part in shaping the very events we witness about us, each and every day.

  Jacqueline Carey

  Play, Events, Goes On

  Jacqueline Carey (2002). “Kushiel's Dart”, p.60, Macmillan

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• I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know. This painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment I follow the pen that is guiding and supporting me.

  Muriel Barbery

  Teaching, Giving, Joy

  "The Elegance of the Hedgehog". Book by Muriel Barbery, September 2, 2013.

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• I believe he died this way on purpose. I believe he wanted no chilling moments, no one to witness his last breath and be haunted by it, the way he had been haunted by his mother's death-notice telegram or by his father's corpse in the city morgue.

  Mitch Albom

  Mother, Father, Believe

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• What is real to me is the power of our awareness when we are focused on something beyond ourselves. It is a shaft of light shining in a dark corner. Our ability to shift our perceptions and seek creative alternatives to the conondrums of modernity is in direct proportion to our empathy. Can we imagine, witness, and ultimately feel the suffering of another?

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Real, Dark, Light

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• I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared.

  Anne Bronte

  Country, Past, Suffering

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