J M Quotes

Elizabeth, Lady C, claims to be writing at the limits of language. Would it not be insulting to her if I were diligently to follow after her, explaining what she means but is not smart enough to say? ~ J.M. Coetzee

They took it for granted that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus children are ever so ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones. ~ J.M. Barrie

The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides the immense sorrow that has gone before. The ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Writers like to believe they're in control of their material, but that's just a comforting lie. After more than twenty-five years of making my life as storyteller, it's become extremely -sometimes painfully- clear to me that I'm just a vehicle, a way for the story to get out into the world. But it's the story itself that does the telling. ~ J.M. DeMatteis

Once I look at the story of the prodigal son with the eyes of faith, the "return" of the prodigal becomes the return of the Son of God who has drawn all people into himself and brings them home to his heavenly Father. As Paul says: "God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

I said. "I'm fine. I have a little bit of a head ache, but I'm not dizzy or nauseous. I can walk and talk just fine, and I can remember everything." "Everything, huh? Don't self-diagnose, Doctor Fisher. Do you remember when the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought?" "The what?" "The Battle of Bunker Hill. We covered it in World Civ." "No, we did not." "We did, too. The unit on the American Revolution." "Davin, that was like, two years ago! I don't remember stuff like that!" "So, not everything." "Everything important." "That happens to have been a very significant battle," Davin reminded me, in a smug tone. ~ J.M. Richards

Those into whose lives you are born do not pass away.

Slow Man ~ J.M. Coetzee

Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are the obvious signs that I have left home. And that happens quite easily. When I pay careful attention to what goes on in my mind from moment to moment, I come to the disconcerting discovery that there are very few moments during the day when I am really free from these dark emotions, passions and feelings.

Constantly falling back into an old trap, before I am even fully aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn't pay attention to me. Without realizing it, I find myself brooding about someone else's success, my own loneliness, and the way the world abuses me. Despite my conscious intentions, I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and very famous. All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a "distant country. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Never take back something you meant. I'd rather you offend me intentionally if it's something you believe than lie to my face just to placate me. ~ J.M. Darhower

To live would be an awfully big adventure. ~ J.M. Barrie

As to who among us is a ghost and who not I have nothing to say: it is a question we can only stare at in silence, like a bird before a snake, hoping it will not swallow us. ~ J.M. Coetzee

How about we just be Haven and Carmine?" she suggested. "We don't know the ending, but we can always hope for the best."
"I like that," he said. "Besides, there's a reason we don't know how the story ends."
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't. ~ J.M. Darhower

Perhaps it does us good to have a fall every now and then. As long as we don't break. ~ J.M. Coetzee

The joy at the dramatic return of the younger son in no way means that the elder son was less loved, less appreciated, less favored. The father does not compare the two sons. He loves them both with a complete love and expresses that love according to their individual journeys. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

I'm surprised you haven't cried foul before. I won a hundred and twenty-three games in a row. You had to know something wasn't right." Her eyes narrowed. "You've been cheating?" "Of course," he said. "Come on. You really think I play fair? If I want something, I get it. I told you - I make all the rules here." "You . . . you . . . you. . ." Anger clouded her expression. "You asshole!" Lucifer's eyes widened. "Tell me how you really feel, angel. ~ J.M. Darhower

You definitely are deep water Dr. Fisher. Fathoms deep. ~ J.M. Richards

Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning. ~ J.M. Barrie

Some things in life only happen once, the memories of them lasting forever. they're moments that alter you, turning you into a person you never thought you'd become, but someone you were always destined to be. ~ J.M. Darhower

Everything about her is beautiful to me. Even when she's scowling, when she's angry and full of hate. She's beautiful when she cries, when she's in the throes of grief. She's beautiful when she smiles, when she laughs at me. But she's the most beautiful when she's doing nothing. When she thinks nobody's looking, when she thinks she's alone. ~ J.M. Darhower

The main problem of service is to be the way without being "in the way." And if there are any tools, techniques and skills to be learned they are primarily to plow the field, to cut the weeds and to clip the branches, that is, to take away the obstacles for real growth and development. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home, and must look far and wide to find one. Home is the center of my being, where I can hear the voice that says, "You are my beloved. On you my favor rests," the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam. The same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light. I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love wherever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am home with God and have nothing to fear. As the beloved of my heavenly Father, "I can walk in the valley of darkness: no evil would I fear." As the beloved I can "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils." Having "received without charge," I can "give without charge." As the Beloved, I can confront, console, admonish, and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation. As the Beloved I can suffer persecution without desire for revenge and receive praise without using it as a proof of my goodness. As the Beloved I can be tortured and killed without ever having to doubt that the love that is given to me is stronger than death. As the Beloved I am free to live and give life, free also to die while giving life.
Jesus has made it clear to me that the same voice that h ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Stand up fallen, forget the past, renew your strength and recover that belongs to you. Success! ~ Piro J.M.

For I was not, as I liked to think, the indulgent pleasure-loving opposite of the cold rigid Colonel. I was the lie that Empire tells itself when times are easy, he the truth that Empire tells when harsh winds blow. ~ J.M. Coetzee

She saw the deepness that was at the edge of France and it made the beach under her feel like a ledge on a cliff. ~ J.M. Ledgard

You make it sound like I'm your protector or some shit. I heard a faint scream. Decided to check it out. Found a car not too far down behind the bar. Four men. Car rocking. Shouting. I checked it out. Saw some girl struggling inside. Got closer. It was you. I saw red. You know the rest. ~ J.M. Sevilla

It's been six years, Jonathan. Six years."

"I know, but I just…"

"You just what? Assume I still love you?"

"Do you? ~ J.M. Darhower

In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other. ~ J.M. Coetzee

In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The highest type of intelligence, says Aristotle, manifests itself in an ability to see connections where no one has seen them before, that is, to think analogically. ~ J.M. Coetzee

I wanted more than anything to connect to someone. I wanted to feel alive again. I just felt dead inside. I could understand how some people just gave up. This darkness was overwhelming. ~ J.M. Northup

Once I lived in time as a fish in water, breathing it, drinking it, sustained by it. Now I kill time and time kills me. ~ J.M. Coetzee

All parts of his body, the circuit and flesh, required rest. Not that anything had gone wrong. ~ J.M.K. Walkow

Thank you, J.M. Barton, Jared Smith and the whole Interactive Stories team! ~ J.M. Barton

It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

If I were to ask about my seven months at the Abbey, "Did it work, did I solve my problems?" the simple answer would be, "It did not work, it did not solve my problems." And I know that a year, two years, or even a lifetime as a Trappist monk would not have "worked" either. Because a monastery is not built to solve problems but to praise the Lord in the midst of them. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

It's hard to feel alive when you've been obliterated inside, hard to feel real when you no longer remember how to dream. ~ J.M. Darhower

During a late evening briefing, Jimmy listened as Harford told the group they would be teleporting. Harford's briefing didn't extend beyond saying the men might experience nausea, mild dizziness, and garbled sounds, and he couldn't tell them more because each person's experience of teleportation was unique. At last, Jimmy would find out what it was like, though the recent conversation with Vicar played on his mind. He wanted the answer to the one question that nagged him, but in the end, he didn't ask how many men had died during teleportation. He reasoned that Harford wouldn't tell him. ~ J.M. Johnson

We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with Him and Him alone. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. Solitude is a place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Suicide, I had understood, is an act not of body against itself but of the will against the body ~ J.M. Coetzee

This wasn't lust. It was something else, something greater. This wasn't want; this was need, more so than she had ever felt before. It was despair, a drowning man desperate for air, a starving man scrounging for scraps to sustain him. He clung to her, like he held on for dear life, afraid of drifting away. No, not lust. This was love. And ~ J.M. Darhower

A strange smile was playing about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered. While that smile was on his face no one dared address him; all they could do was to stand ready to obey. ~ J.M. Barrie

have seen how the fear of becoming subject to God's revenge and punishment has paralyzed the mental and emotional lives of many people, independently of their age, religion, or life-style. This paralyzing fear of God is one of the great human tragedies. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?"
Nothing, precious," she said; "they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children. ~ J.M. Barrie

She seemed like a keeper. Housewife material, verses your usual whorehouse type. ~ J.M. Darhower

To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children. ~ J.M. Barrie

Anyway, said Robert, they got a big fright. After that they started dropping pellets in the water and digging latrines and spraying for flies and bringing buckets of soap. But do you think they do it because they love us? Not a hope. They prefer it that we live because we look too terrible when we get sick and die. If we grew thin and turned into paper and then into ash and floated away, they wouldn't give a stuff for us. They just don't want to get upset. They want to go to sleep feeling good. ~ J.M. Coetzee

They say when seeking revenge, dig two graves, one for you and one for them. ~ J.M. Darhower

they gave him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and soon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher and higher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops. It ~ J.M. Barrie

What is afraid?' asked Peter longingly. He thought it must be some splendid thing. 'I do wish you would teach me how to be afraid, Maimie,' he said. ~ J.M. Barrie

Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love. The gaze of love is not deluded. It sees what is best in the beloved even when what is best in the beloved finds it hard to emerge into the light. ~ J.M. Coetzee

I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African. ~ J.M. Coetzee

The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this world, are dead
young mothers, returned to see how their children fare. There is
no other inducement great enough to bring the departed back.
They glide into the acquainted room when day and night, their
jailers, are in the grip, and whisper, "How is it with you, my
child?" but always, lest a strange face should frighten him, they
whisper it so low that he may not hear. They bend over him to
see that he sleeps peacefully, and replace his sweet arm beneath
the coverlet, and they open the drawers to count how many little
vests he has. They love to do these things.

What is saddest about ghosts is that they may not know their
child. They expect him to be just as he was when they left him,
and they are easily bewildered, and search for him from room to
room, and hate the unknown boy he has become. Poor, passionate
souls, they may even do him an injury. These are the ghosts that
go wailing about old houses, and foolish wild stories are
invented to explain what is all so pathetic and simple. I know
of a man who, after wandering far, returned to his early home to
pass the evening of his days in it, and sometimes from his chair
by the fire he saw the door open softly and a woman's face
appear. She always looked at him very vindictively, and then
vanished. Strange things happened in this house. Windows were < ~ J.M. Barrie

The last thing he ever said to me was, 'Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing. ~ J.M. Barrie

He pushes in then, slowly, deeply, stroking a chord inside of me. My breath hitches. Oh God.
"I love that sound," he whispers, his voice gritty. "It's the best music in the world."
I wrap my arms around him. "Maybe that should be your ringtone, then."
He laughs, his face nuzzled into my neck. "That wouldn't work."
"Why?"
"Because others would hear it. That sound belongs only to my ears. ~ J.M. Darhower

I was feeling more edgy and uncomfortable as my unquenched desires moved from a feeling of discontent to full blown pain. At first, the sensation was more like an irritation or itch, but the longer I sat there, the more intense it grew. Not only was I burning from the dissatisfaction of my unmet arousal, but my entire body felt like it was on fire. It was as if a billion poisoned needles were being injected into me simultaneously torturing my soul with flames that licked the flesh from my body. ~ J.M. Northup

She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly. ~ J.M. Barrie

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Decency: the inexplicable: the ground of all ethics. Things we do not do. We do not stare when the soul leaves the body, but veil our eyes with tears or cover them with our hands. We do not stare at scars, which are places where the soul has struggled to leave and been forced back, closed up, sewn in. ~ J.M. Coetzee

But then she happened. The girl who had never been able to call her life her own taught a boy who had the world at his fingertips exactly what it meant to live. He wasn't alone anymore. ~ J.M. Darhower

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation. I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of. While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether I will be truly welcome when I get there. As I look at my spiritual journey, my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future. I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, but I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, 'grace is always greater.' Still clinging to my sense of worthlessness, I project for myself a place far below that which belongs to the son, (p. 52). ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Why should a man marry and have children, study and build a career; why should he invent new techniques, build new institutions, and develop new ideas--when he doubts if there will be a tomorrow which can guarantee the value of human effort?
Crucial here for nuclear man is the lack of a sense of continuity, which is so vital for a creative life. He finds himself part of a nonhistory in which only the sharp moment of the here and now is valuable. For nuclear man life easily becomes a bow whose string is broken and from which no arrow can fly. In his dislocated state he becomes paralyzed. His reactions are not anxiety and joy, which were so much a part of existential man, but apathy and boredom. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Jupiter was a chilly, dark and unfriendly tract of land in which no hope lingered, only despair. There she woke up in an oval dungeon. ~ J.M.K. Walkow

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice. ~ J.M. Coetzee

Jesus lived this joy of the Father's house to the full. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

If you continue to touch me," he said, his eyes flashing, searing into her, "you're going to end up in this tub with me. ~ J.M. Stewart

Thus did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true. ~ J.M. Barrie

Anna, you do have decent fashion sense. But I've seen your outfits, and you don't have anything to wear on a date. Jeans, capris, geeky tee shirts, and more jeans. ~ J.M. Richards

Reference when we talked about Machiavelli, didn't you? I could've sworn you did." "Just because I don't enjoy it doesn't mean I know nothing about it. Tupac was around back in my wind-up phonograph days, you know." I cast her a sardonic look, which makes her laugh and shrug, as if to say 'hey, not my fault you're an old ass man.' "I'm surprised you know anything about him, actually. He died around the time you were born." "Yeah, well, music never really goes out of style, especially Tupac," she says with a smile. ~ J.M. Darhower

Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world's problems. But just as in nature colors and shapes mingle without clear-cut distinctions, human life doesn't offer the clarity we are looking for. The borders between love and hate, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, heroism and cowardice, care and neglect, guilt and blamelessness are mostly vague, ambiguous, and hard to discern. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

I've skimmed through it a dozen times, the book glued to my side the past few days, like maybe the information will sink in through osmosis. ~ J.M. Darhower

You smell like my brother. His scent is all over you. It reeks. ~ J.M. Darhower

But the years came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little dust in the box in which she had kept her toys. ~ J.M. Barrie

Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say thanks. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

We are all failures- at least the best of us are. ~ J.M. Barrie

Give in to it, angel."
"Give in to what?"
"The hunger," he said, his tongue slowly running across his bottom lip. "The need. Give in to the craving. Give in to me."
"Never," she whispered, the word impulsively tumbling from her lips, no conviction in her feeble voice.
"I know you feel it, deep inside of you, screaming out to be acknowledged, to be satiated," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. "I can sense it, clawing underneath your skin, begging to be let loose, begging to be invited out to play. ~ J.M. Darhower

I've always believed," she replied, "that if God is going to be strict about anything, that He will be strict about the rules concerning hate, not love. And if two people love each other, that has to be better than two people hating each other. Beyond that, it's for God to sort out. I'm too frail to be such a judge. ~ J.M. Redmann

Yes." I answer instantly, ~ J.M. Darhower

Don't joke about this. We're it for each other. There's no one else like us. There's no one else. I really like you. I feel... I don't know what I feel. I feel like I'm better with you. I feel like I'm not so..."

She said nothing. She looked at him with tired eyes. She wasn't listening. ~ J.M. McDermott

Every "I hate you" echoing from her chest was followed by an "I love you" from his lips. Every time she begged him to let go, he told her he would be there forever. His hold was strong, his arms familiar, but it did nothing to take away her pain. ~ J.M. Darhower

It was her turn to hold him up. ~ J.M. Stewart

He decided to appeal to the fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed
to know a good deal. ~ J.M. Barrie

I don't know if you have ever seem a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less and island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose. ~ J.M. Barrie

The Rats had a fine goalie, Big Ann, a lady dragon who fearlessly stretched herself to the limit anytime she blocked the ball. ~ J.M.K. Walkow

I'm not heartless - my heart is just hardened, while the rest of me is hollow. ~ J.M. Darhower

Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had forgotten them all. ~ J.M. Barrie

face your fears and wipe your tears ~ J.M. Darhower

And you don't know this, but that girl? The one left outside of that school alone? She's sitting there writing about you. You have all the makings of a modern-day tragic hero, and she's never felt so compelled to explore somebody's story before… ~ J.M. Darhower

The distinctive crimes of this generation are crimes of subtlety and finesse.
- ALEXANDER S. BACON 1908 ~ J.M. Carlisle

Another day without no rain, is another day of sorrow.
And if it doesn't rain today, I hope it rains tomorrow. ~ J.M. Carydice

If I could find anything blacker than black, I'd use it. ~ J. M. W. Turner

He bowed jokingly, and everyone laughed as Mrs.Anderson shook her head. "Did you even read the material?"
"of course I did."
"Who was the leader of the North?"
"Lincoln."
"No, he was the president."
"Yes, which means he was the fucking leader of everyone."
Carmine ~ J.M. Darhower

He turned her chin until she looked him in the face. "I'm going to tell you a couple things, and I want you to remember this. Number one, I'm a Navy SEAL. You can't even compare me to most men, so don't lump me in with them." He waited for her laughter to subside. "Number two, I don't care what you've been told or by whom. Your body fucking rocks. Men don't want to make love to twigs. Way more than will admit it want a lush, cushioning body to welcome them home." Reaching out, he cupped her hips in his hands, tugging her into him. "I would not change anything about you. Not one single thing. ~ J.M. Madden

I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us. ~ J.M. Barrie

To pray, that is, to listen to the voice of the One who calls us the "beloved", is to learn that that voice excludes no one. Where I dwell, God dwells with me and where God dwells with me I find all my sisters and brothers. And so intimacy with God and solidarity with all people are two aspects of dwelling in the present moment that can never be separated. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

For many of us prayer means nothing more than speaking with God. And since it usually seems to be a quite one-sided affair, prayer simply means talking to God. This idea is enough to create great frustrations. If I present a problem, I expect a solution; if I formulate a question, I expect an answer; if I ask for guidance, I expect a response. And when it seems, increasingly, that I am talking into the dark, it is not so strange that I soon begin to suspect that my dialogue with God is in fact a monologue. Then I may begin to ask myself: To whom am I really speaking, God or myself? ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. ~ J.M. Power

My dog knows very little, but what little he does know he knows extraordinarily well. ~ J.M. Barrie

Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon was right; there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it is lock-out time. The iron bars are up for life. ~ J.M. Barrie