Koertge Quotes & Sayings

Margaux looks around the table; this is not working. All of a sudden she's thinking about a safe room, something she's only heard of but suddenly wants: water, oxygen, bulletproof door, dead bolts, a thousand books. Utterly quiet. Completely silent. No girls she barely knows in saggy leather pants, no girls in mesh strippers' gloves and jeans sanded thin as a bee's wing, and no girls who can't stay home one night a year because they are always and forever out. On their way to. Coming from.
And then her heart open. Just a little, but it does. Because she remembers all that. How she felt then: the self-reproach, the utter confusion ... That's why her heart opens. For those girls at the table who always feel baffled and sad, tender and malign, repulsive and desirable, innocent and contemptuous of innocence.
So she cries. For them, mostly. For herself a little ... everything hesitates. So that for a second there's no sound in the enormous room but that of Margaux sobbing. — Ron Koertge

You've got scars, you're beat up, you're a different person, but you're through it. — Ron Koertge

Unavoidably, the life of contemplation is an everyday life, a life of fidelity in small matters, small services rendered in the spirit of warmth and love which lightens every burden. The sun's brightness can from time to time (and perhaps often) be hidden in mist and cloud, but that is no reason for laying aside one's daily work. Contemplation is work, and it goes on working even when the person praying derives no apparent satisfaction from it. Contemplation is a conversation in which I am at pains not to be boring, not to say and think the same thing every day; I use my imagination and creativity to offer God at least something of myself. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

OMG. He's a gift shop, a lamb kebab with mint,/a solar panel poetry machine with biceps. He's the path/through the dark woods, the light on the page, a postcard/from the castle and a one-way ticket there. He's the most/astounding arrangement of molecules ever!/Just look at those tights! An honest-to-God prince at last. — Ron Koertge

That's why babies cry so much. All of a sudden having a body is a lot to deal with. — Ron Koertge

Imagine the wizened quality of a life blanched of contradiction and double standard.
p 44 — Michael Perry

Maybe he's not coming,' I whispered to Damar. 'He's crazy after all. Maybe something shiny caught his attention and he forgot about me. — Diana Graves

I'm not a big fan of inspiration. I'm too old to sit and wait for the muse to give me a little kiss ... I write a lot, and I'm not afraid to make mistakes or to write badly. I can alsways fix something weak and dull. But I can't fix a blank page. — Ron Koertge

Dark night of the soul," said Jesus, "Happens to everybody sooner or later. — Ron Koertge

Kids don't think about their folks nearly as much as everybody imagines. Parents are just there, like background music at the mall. — Ron Koertge

Look how beautiful the green lawns of the park are in the misty evening light, unmuddied, smooth, alive, no holes, no bodies, no barbed wire, no explosions. Such a simple thing to be grateful for. No wrongness. Can no wrongness be enough to make rightness? God, no wrongness. No wrongness would be fucking marvellous. — Louisa Young

The Sherpas play a very important role in most mountaineering expeditions, and in fact many of them lead along the ridges and up to the summit. — Edmund Hillary

With his iPod all the way up, nothing in this
world can touch him. Just over his pulse
is a fresh tattoo- a dotted line and the words
Cut Here
Grief is a street he skates down. "Hey,
donkey's ass!" He bides his time, sanding
away his fingerprints, wondering how he
could get his assailants in one room. — Ron Koertge

Even if the economy crashes, we will still burn oil. — Robert Kiyosaki

If you're successful in what you do over a period of time, you'll start approaching records, but that's not what you're playing for. You're playing to challenge and be challenged. — Lou Brock

I always sit through the credits. I am always the last one out of any theater. I even make a point of being last. I stay in my seat until everyone else has shuffled past. Then I turn my back, too, on the comforting dark. — Ron Koertge

Walker grinned.
'Ah,' said Jesus. 'There it is. Signs of your holiness.'
'I just smiled. You made a dumb joke, and I smiled.'
'And that isn't holy? — Ron Koertge

Though Women's Studies was supposed to give a voice to "silenced" women, all too many women who dissent from its orthodoxy have themselves felt silenced by intolerant professors - and students, too. Indeed, while some (generally tenured) older professors like Willingham do dare to challenge Women's Studies dogma, younger initiates, whether students or greenhorn instructors, often act as fierce enforcers of dogma, reiterating it (as did Tholen and Alder at the Beijing +15 session) with all the zeal of fresh converts to a fundamentalist faith and bristling at any violation of Holy Writ. Patai and Koertge quote professors who complain about students being "zombified" by Women's Studies, turned into "ideologically inflamed Stepford Wives" who "utter ... stock phrases" and are plainly "terrified of a thought because if they ever had a serious thought, they might start reflecting on this stuff they're taught to repeat. — Bruce Bawer

Since I don't know where I'm going, I guess I'm in no real hurry to get there. — Ron Koertge

Statements make sense for somebody who needs advice. I'm not giving advice. I don't instruct. At my best, I delight. That's my job. — Ron Koertge

My interests lie in nurturing children. That's part of the reason why the bullying thing has become an aspect of my life. I was bullied a lot growing up. I know firsthand the amount of life that is sucked out of you every time that happens, and how it affected me as a young adult. — Tyler Blackburn

I feel like I have another level every year that I start a new season of basketball. If I continue to keep growing, and make everything consistent, I'm going to get better and better each year. — Victor Oladipo

I leave the number and a short
message on every green Volvo
in town

Is anything wrong?
I miss you.
574-7423

The phone rings constantly.
One says, Are you bald?
Another, How tall are you in
your stocking feet?

Most just reply, Nothing's wrong.
I miss you, too.

Come quick. — Ronald Koertge

If every kid who said he was going to the library, when he was really off doing something else, actually went to the library, they'd have to send out for more books. — Ron Koertge

No wonder I want to be Robert Mitchum: big, strong, super-cool, with those Freon eyes of his. That's who I was pretending to be a minute ago - Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past. - Ben — Ron Koertge

You're a miracle, Walker. Your fingers are. Your toes are. Your crushing sadness and guilt are. — Ron Koertge

She knows her life is on the line but, believe it
or not, she's never been so excited!
Her husband's a serial killer, and her bodice is wet
with tears, but there's a chance her brothers
will show up like winning lottery numbers.
Which does she want more - her hair wound
in the maniac's hands and her white white throat bared,
or the sound of boots on marble stairs? — Ron Koertge

Little kids I don't mind. Every kid wants a pony. It's grown-ups that get my robe in a knot. Stop with the begging, okay? Adore me for a change. Or give thanks. I like gratitude. Or ask for guidance. But oh, no. It's always the pony. — Ron Koertge

Must you argue everything?"
"Yeah. I'm a lawyer. — Jodi Picoult

All over town kids lay awake & wondered: Am I smart enough, pretty enough, strong enough, tall enough? If our fears were smoke, the town would be covered night & day by an inky pall. — Ron Koertge

The guys can't take their eyes off Colleen ... one of them ... probably sees her just like I do, she's the gatekeeper to another world. — Ron Koertge