Givings Home Quotes & Sayings

He laughed. "What's to say? Great paintings - people flock to see them, they draw crowds, they're reproduced endlessly on coffee mugs and mouse pads and anything-you-like. And, I count myself in the following, you can have a lifetime of perfectly sincere museum-going where you traipse around enjoying everything and then go out and have some lunch. But - " crossing back to the table to sit again " - if a painting really works down in your heart and changes the way you see, and think, and feel, you don't think, 'oh, I love this picture because it's universal.' 'I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.' That's not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It's a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you." Fingertip gliding over the faded-out photo - the conservator's touch, a touch-without-touching, a communion wafer's space between the surface and his forefinger. — Donna Tartt

Shy Gifts
Shy gifts that come to us from a world that may not
even know we're here. Windfalls, scantlings.
Breaking a bough like breathy flute-notes, a row
of puffed white almond-blossom, the word in hiding
among newsprint that has other news to tell.
In a packed aisle at the supermarket, I catch
the eye of a wordless one-year-old, whale-blue,
unblinking. It looks right through me, recognising
what? Wisely mistrustful but unwisely
impulsive as we are, we take these givings
as ours and meant for us - why else so leap
to receive them? - and go home lighter
of step to the table set, the bed turned down, the book
laid open under the desk-lamp, pages astream
with light like angels' wings, arched for take-off. — David Malouf

I grind so fine, I'm practically coffee, he says with a straight face, then busts out a grin. — Jillian Dodd

In the struggle for righteousness, there is nothing more helpful than being passionately in tune with Christ through His Spirit and being passionately committed to doing His will. It has been said that in order to tune in to God's voice, we must tune out this world's noise. — Billy Graham

The minister is about to start." "I'm five minutes away. Trust me. You have got to stop the service! — James Patterson

They should have focused more on me. — Sebastian Telfair

The 20th century merits the name "The Century of Murder." 1915 Turks slaughtered 2 million Armenians. 1933 to 1954 the Soviet government encompassed the death of 20 to 65 million citizens. 1933 to 1945 Nazi Germany murdered more than 25 million people. 1948 Hindus and Muslims engaged in racial and religious strife that claimed more lives than could be reported. 1970 3 million Bangladesh were killed. 1971 Uganda managed the death of 300,000 people. 1975 Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and murdered up to 3 million people. In recent times more than half a million of Rwanda's 6 million people have been murdered. At present times genocidal strife is underway in Bosnia, Somalia, Burundi and elsewhere.
The people of the world have demonstrated themselves to be so capable of forgetting the murderous frenzies in which their fellows have participated that it is essential that one, at least, be remembered and the world be regularly reminded of it. _Consequences of the Holocaust — Raul Hilberg

Not everyone has to fly high to prove they exist; some of us are perfectly happy flying low and enjoying the view. — Mike A. Lancaster

She loved him in a deep and singular way, almost as though God had crafted one heart in heaven, then split it between Holden's body and hers, fating her to a never-ending longing to be with him, or a fractional life without him. She — Katy Regnery

If I were not a doubter, I would know nothing. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

When I finish playing, I think I'd like to coach college baseball. — Barry Bonds

It is doubling now every two years. Doubling every two years means multiplying by 1,000 in 20 years. At that rate we'll meet 100 percent of our energy needs in 20 years. — Ray Kurzweil

Like secondhand smoke, the leakage of emotions can make a bystander an innocent casualty of someone else's toxic state. — Daniel Goleman

There is no one true church. — Pat Buckley

I made friends with a boy who was a communist when I was 13 and that broadened my political views, but it also brought me into conflict with my father who was very Right-wing. — Vince Cable