Sigrid Gurie Quotes

You didn't think it was possible for a woman to wander the streets in the same spirit and manner as a man. A female pedestrian was subject to constant disruptions: stares, comments, catcalls, gropes. A woman was raised to be always on guard: Was this guy walking too close? Was that guy following her? How, then, could she ever relax enough to experience the loss of sense of self, the joy of pure being that was the ideal of true flânerie? ~ Sigrid Nunez

He is convinced--and what immigrant isn't?--that all Americans are crazy. ~ Sigrid Nunez

I don't want to talk about you, or to hear others talk about you. It's a cliche, of course: we talk about the dead in order to remember them, in order to keep them, in the only way we can, alive. But I have found that the more people say about you, for example those who spoke at the memorial - people who loved you, people who knew you well, people who were very good with words - the further you seem to slip away, the more like a hologram you become. ~ Sigrid Nunez

A pause here to confess, not without shame: I never heard the news that you'd fallen in love without experiencing a pang, nor could I suppress a surge of joy each time I heard that you were breaking up with someone. ~ Sigrid Nunez

Helga Sigrid was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and still had an accent right out of Wagner. She was almost as tall as he was, and as Nordic as it was possible to get without disappearing altogether whenever the sun came out. ~ Carsten Stroud

Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I'll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again. ~ Sigrid Nunez

God grant ... that he may learn to understand in time, that whoso is minded to do as he himself wills will soon enough see the day when he will find he has done that which he had never willed. ~ Sigrid Undset

Saint Olav turned her eyes toward Christ on the cross - see, Kristin: God's love. ~ Sigrid Undset

We actually do have a lot of guns. There's a lot of hunting in Norway. But there's almost no gun violence."
"Why do you think that is?"
"On a fundamental level," says Sigrid, "I think it's because we don't want to shoot each other."
"That could be our problem right there," says Melinda ~ Derek B. Miller

It's a good thing when you don't dare do something if you don't think it's right. But it's not good when you think something's not right because you don't dare do it. ~ Sigrid Undset

Come walk with me, come walk with me; We were not once so few But Death has stolen our company As sunshine steals the dew - He took them one by one and we Are left the only two. The ~ Sigrid Vansandt

Do you know who 'twas that first knew our Lord had caused Himself to be born? 'Twas the cock; he saw the star, and so he said–all the beasts could talk Latin in those days; he cried: 'Christus natus est!' "
He crowed these words so like a cock that Kristin fell to laughing heartily. And it did her good to laugh, for all the strange things Brother Edvin had just been saying had laid a burden of awe on her heart.
The monk laughed himself:
"Ay, and when the ox heard that, he began to low: 'Ubi, ubi, ubi.'
"But the goat bleated, and said: 'Betlem, Betlem, Betlem.'
"And the sheep so longed to see Our Lady and her Son that she baa-ed out at once: 'Eamus, eamus!'
"And the new-born calf that lay in the straw, raised itself and stood upon its feet. 'Volo, volo, volo!' it said. ~ Sigrid Undset

Every time I come home, it is the same great pleasure to lie down in my bed. That's when I think, 'home sweet home.' ~ Sigrid Agren

Pre-Christian paganism is a love poem to a God who remained hidden, or it was an attempt to gain the favour of the divine powers whose presence man felt about him. The new paganism is a declaration of war against a God who has revealed Himself ~ Sigrid Undset

Queers can't destroy science fiction. No one can. No one can destroy the future. But we can, through malice or complacency or inattention, limit the future. ~ Sigrid Ellis

She walked as if through a forest. The pillars were furrowed like ancient trees, and into the woods the light seeped, colorful and as clear as song, through the stained-glass windows. High overhead animals and people frolicked in the stone foliage, and angels played their instruments. At an even higher, more dizzying height, the vaults of the ceiling arched upward, lifting the church toward God ... The song cut through her like a blinding light. Now she saw how deep in the dust she lay. ~ Sigrid Undset

Feelings of longing seemed to burst from her heart; they ran in all directions, like streams of blood, seeking out paths to all the places in the wide landscape where she had lived, to all her sons roaming through the world, to all her dead lying under the earth. ~ Sigrid Undset

Yes, well... I suppose the man who owns nothing is free."
Gunnulf replied, "A man's possessions own him more than he owns them. ~ Sigrid Undset

I always watch the French news on the Internet while having my breakfast. ~ Sigrid Agren

But I didn't realize then that the consequence of sin is that you have to trample on other people. ~ Sigrid Undset

It is an easy matter, Olav, to be a good Christian so long as God asks no more of you than to hear sweet singing in church, and to yield Him obedience while He caresses you with the hand of a father. But a man's faith is put to the test on the day God's will is not his. ~ Sigrid Undset

All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path. ~ Sigrid Undset

Catherine [of Siena] compares justice combined with mercy with a precious pearl. Justice without mercy would be dark, cruel, more like injustice than justice. But mercy without justice would be like salve on a sore which should be cleansed with the red-hot iron; if the salve is applied before the wound is cleansed it only makes it smart, and does not heal it ~ Sigrid Undset

In The Last of Her Kind, Sigrid Nunez once again creates characters of such depth and situations of such vivid moral complexity that reading these pages is like living them. Only as I closed the book did I sadly realize that Georgette and Ann weren't my neighbors. But happily I can revisit them again, and again, in this beautiful and absorbing novel. ~ Margot Livesey

Christ, you who were crucified! Now I have given up everything that could bind me. And I have placed myself in your hands, if you would find my life worthy enough to be freed from its servitude to Satan. Take me so that I may feel that I am your slave, for then I will possess you in return. ~ Sigrid Undset

It was too much for weak men, of more or less good will, who knew in their hearts that the Pope was right ad that they ought to cooperate with him, when the Pope demanded, with harsh and angry words, that they should immediately change their way of life and give up all small comforts they had grown accustomed to, in order to live in a state of self-denial suitable for the strictest ascetic. They were agreed that it was time for a reform within the Church. But if this were reform ... And the language he used when he broke into a rage! "Shut up!" he said to the cardinals. He shouted "Pazzo!" -Idiot- to Cardinal Orsini, and "Ribaldo!" -Bandit- to the Cardinal of Geneva. His electors began to regret their choice bitterly. ~ Sigrid Undset

If we could talk to animals, goes the song.
Meaning, if they could talk to us.
But of course that would ruin everything. ~ Sigrid Nunez

Her heart felt as if it were breaking in her breast, bleeding and bleeding, young and fierce. From grief over the warm and ardent love which she had lost and still secretly mourned; from anguished joy over the pale, luminous love which drew her to the farthest boundaries of life on this earth. Through the great darkness that would come, she saw the gleam of another, gentler sun, and she sensed the fragrance of the herbs in the garden at world's end. ~ Sigrid Undset

The blood that ran down from the cross in redemption for all sins and penance for all sorrows - that was the visible sign. ~ Sigrid Undset

Strays is what a writer I recently read calls those who, for one reason or another, and despite whatever they might have wanted earlier in life, never really become a part of life, not in the way most people do. They may have serious relationships, they may have friends, even a sizable circle, they may spend large portions of their time in the company of others. But they never marry and they never have children. On holidays, they join some family or other group. This goes on year after year, until they finally find it in themselves to admit that they'd really rather just stay home.

But you must see a lot of people like that, I say to the therapist.

Actually, he says, I don't. ~ Sigrid Nunez

Tis well when we dare not do a thing we think is not good and fair; but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it ... ~ Sigrid Undset

I saw not till now what sin brings with it - that we must tread others underfoot. ~ Sigrid Undset