Comment: Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here. Sue Monk Kidd has told a beautiful story of finding truth, family, love, and oneself. Her ability to play with words makes reading this book a delicious treat. I've captured some of these tasty morsels here in no particular order ...
Favorite Quotes:
All sorrows can be borne if we put them in a story or tell a story about them. ~ Isak Dinesen, quoted by SMK
What else do you love? Nobody had asked me that question before.
I envy turtles their shells, how they can disappear at will.
It was my plot of earth, my cubbyhole.
'Saw your girl in the peach stand reading up a storm. You must be proud.' And he would half kill me. What kind of person is against reading?
Pious people have always gotten on my nerves.
Sunset is the saddest light there is.
That was the absolute way of things. Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it.
... there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.
Spinners take out the bad stuff, leave in the good. I've always thought how nice it would be to have spinners like this for human beings. Just toss them in and let the spinner do its work.
It's your secret ... You do what you want with it.
As I walked, I began to hear the sound of running water. It's impossible to hear that sound and not go searching for the source.
The first week at August's was a consolation, a pure relief. The world will give you that once in a while, a brief time-out; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life.
Bee yard etiquette: ... the world is really one big bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places: Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and long pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates, while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.
I could see the stars with all the spy satellites mixed in. Maybe one of them was taking my picture this very minute. They could spot me even in the dark. Nothing was safe. I would have to remember that.
It was the in-between time, before day leaves and night comes, a time I've never been partial to because of the sadness that lingers in the space between going and coming.
What's wrong with living in a dream world? You have to wake up.
Quietness has a strange, spongy hum that can nearly break your eardrums.
You could not stop a bee from working if you tried. ... they are hardworking to the point of killing themselves. Sometimes you want to say to them, Relax, take some time off, you deserve it.
... everybody needs a God who looks like them.
... women make the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. It comes from years of loving children and husbands.
... some things don't matter much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart--now, that matters. The whole problem with people is ... they know what matters, but they don't choose it... The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.
It seemed to me it would have been better if God had deleted skin pigment altogether.
You think too much. It would do you a world of good to stop thinking and just go with your feelings once in a blue moon.
Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like elevator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long.
God, I know you meant well creating the world and all, but how could you let it get away from you like this? How come you couldn't stick with your original idea of paradise? People's lives are a mess.
Is it the wounded places down inside people that seek each other out, that breed a kind of love between them?
... something everybody wants is for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.
Death is nothing but a doorway.
... when it's time to die, die, and when it's time to live, live. Don't sort-of-maybe live, but live like you're going all out, like you're not afraid (of dying).
Bee hum... It was the oldest sound there was. Souls flying away.
You could die in a river, but maybe you could get reborn in it, too...
There's a fullness of time for things... You have to know when to prod and when to be quiet, when to let things take their course.
Where had I been that I didn't know about imaginary friends? I could see the point of it. How a lost part of yourself steps out and remind you who you could be with a little work.
Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth and I didn't know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.
... you can't talk yourself out of anger. Either you are angry or you're not.
I wanted to throw something all the way to heaven and knock God clean off his throne.
I felt my heart in my chest. It hurt so badly. Like it had been stepped on.
I lay in the emptiness, in the tiredness, with everything--even the hating--drained out. There was nothing left to do. No place to go. Just right here, right now, where the truth was.
In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional.
It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.
Regrets don't help anything ...
... the only purpose grand enough for a human life... is not just to love--but to persist in love.
I am enough. We are enough.
If you need something from somebody, always give that person a way to hand it to you.
... I believe in the goodness of imagination. ... I wake up to wonder every day.
... You've got to hear of these things before you can imagine them. / You gotta imagine what's never been.
There is nothing perfect. There is only life.
