Walter Wangerin Jr. Quotes

We never slam the door on flattery, we nudge it shut like a man rejecting his mistress: if she nudges back, we're delighted – and if she breaks it down, we rejoice.

I have never loved Fortune, even when she seemed most to love me. I never considered her treasures mine, neither her money, nor her office nor her influence. Her theft of these things, therefore. has taken away nothing of my own. Mother, my roof is the stars. My house is human goodness. My body is clothed. My stomach is full. And the thirstier part of me, my soul, drinks gladly from the pool of my books.
So much for me. I am just fine.

What the Ancient Liar did to Eve at the beginning of things he did to me. The Mother of All was a mighty woman. She thought to outface the Serpent. She thought to brazen it though as she were herself equal to evil.

You are married. Healing is not a profession but a way of life. Your spouse is not your patient but your flesh. Healing, then, is a task for your heart as well as your head and your hand.

Mutuality is accomplished by two whole persons; and if each partner truly intends to be but the fraction of a relationship (thinking my whole makes up half of us) he or she will soon discover that these halves do not fit perfectly together. The mathematics can work only if each subtracts something of himself or herself, shears it off, and lays it aside forever. There will come, then, a moment of shock when one spouse realizes, 'you won't want the whole of me? Not the whole of me, but only a part of me, makes up the whole of us?" P 45

Neither does she have a name
none that I could find even in my most persistent researches: Julian's gentle lady, I mean; she whom I sought and chased and wooed (as it were) down a warren of historical tunnels.

Sorrow spoken lends a little courage to the speaker.

For what was your gesture? An act of pure love for Jesus particularly. It was an act so completely focused upon the Christ that not a dram of worldly benefit was gained thereby. Nothing could justify the spillage of some three hundred days' wages, except love alone. [ ... ] The disciples, in fact, were offended by an act that produced nothing, accomplished nothing, fed no poor, served no need. They reproached you as a wastrel. They were offended by the absurd, an act devoted absolutely to love, to love alone. But Jesus called it 'beautiful.

But the talk of dialogue involves the work of knowing, acknowledging the other, of shaping speech toward him, for her. It is neither done or done well until it has been well received by that particular hearer.

Mirrors that hide nothing hurt me. But this is the hurt of purging and precious renewal - and these are the mirrors of dangerous grace.

And the strongest trust is built by the smallest actions, the keeping of the little promises. It is the constant truthfulness, the continued dependability, the remembrance of minor things, which most inspire confidence and faith.

True "volunteering," then, obeys no law, seeks no returns, pays no debts, plans no praise for yourself, nor proves your goodness

But this is my contentment, that I've lost what I never needed and what I need I can never lose: these two things, universal nature and one's personal virtue.
For this is the intention of the creator of the world, whatever he may be - whether an all-powerful Deity, or some incorporeal Reason contriving vast works, or a divine Spirit pervading all things from the least to the largest with a uniform energy, or Fate, or an inalterable sequence of Causes clinging one to another - whatever the Intender, I say, this is his intention: that nothing of ours can fall under the control of others except that which is finally and truly worthless to us.
The best of any man lies beyond the power of other men, either to give it or take it away.

That is what grace does. It comes as a surprise; it lingers in the rare atmosphere of love, since love itself is breathed by it and love by it is made manifest. This expression of love is "ecstasy" in the Greek meaning of that word: to "stand outside" the ordinary, outside predetermined marital contracts, outside the systematic and the expected

He went wordless, and wordless he sat beside her. He knew the size of her sorrow.

The stories that contain badness are not bad stories. Rather, they are among some of the best. Because the storyteller who loves the children and gives the whole of his or her self to them by means of the tale - inviting at the same time the whole of the children's selves - is of all people the best able to confront true and truly terrible things with the children.

Have you noticed the words which Old Testament people use when someone important calls them by name? They don't say "What?" or "Yes?" They answer with the curious sentence, "Here I am". So much is in that sentence: readiness to respond, a willing servitude, an offering of oneself to the other.

So go back to the books. They will comfort you and cheer you. If you earnestly work with them, neither sorrow nor anxiety nor distress nor suffering need trouble your mind any more, no, not evermore.

Volunteering also honours the sort of work your spouse is obliged to do if you choose cheerfully to do it for him or her. It abolished distinctions and degrees of value. All work is valuable in the house where no work is held in contempt, and where love is not kept in hiding.

All the world's an empty place when one voice weeps uncomforted.

She had caused to surround us the very atmosphere of "home," so that however far we traveled, however strange the territory, I was "home" as long as I was with her.