The Kindly Ones Quotes

The Kindly Ones would say it didn't matter. And maybe they were right. We still could have snatched happiness from our tragedy if we had made the right choices, the right wishes. If we had been kinder, braver, purer. If only we had been anything but what we were. ~ Rosamund Hodge

Delirium: You use that word so much. Responsibilities. Do you ever think about what that means? I mean, what does it mean to you? In your head?
Dream: Well, I use it to refer that area of existence over which I exert a certain amount of control or influence. In my case, the realm and action of dreaming.
Delirium: Hump. It's more than that. The things we do make echoes. S'pose, f'rinstance, you stop on a street corner and admire a brilliant fork of lightning
ZAP! Well for ages after people and things will stop on that very same corner, stare up at the sky. They wouldn't even know what they were looking for. Some of them might see a ghost bolt of lightning in the street. Some of them might even be killed by it. Our existence deforms the universe. THAT'S responsibility. ~ Neil Gaiman

The sense of literary creation is to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times; to find in the objects around us the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in far-off times when every trifle of our plain everyday life will become exquisite and festive in its own right: the times when a man who might put on the most ordinary jacket of today will be dressed up for an elegant masquerade. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I am sorry to say we whites have a sad reputation among many of the Polynesians. The natives of these islands are naturally of a kindly and hospitable temper, but there has been implanted among them an almost instinctive hate of the white man. They esteem us, with rare exceptions, such as some of the missionaries, the most barbarous, treacherous, irreligious, and devilish creatures on the earth. ~ Herman Melville

I find it hard to believe that a lady like...' Pertellis hesitated, and coughed. 'There is something elevated in the female spirit that will always hold a woman back from the coldest and most vicious forms of villainy.'

'No, there isn't,' Miss Kitely said kindly but firmly, as she set a dish in his hand. 'Drink your chocolate, Mr Pertellis. ~ Frances Hardinge

I had never seen anything like New York, and its newness held the promise of my future: dense with the experience I craved - romantic, urbane, intellectual. Looking back on that moment, I believe I was saved from disappointment by the nature of my "great expectations." I honestly wasn't burdened with conventional notions of finding security and happiness. At that time of my life, even when I was "happy," it wasn't because I expected it. That was for characters less romantic than myself. I didn't expect to be rich, well fed, and kindly treated by all. I wanted to live deeply and fully, to embrace whatever the city held for me. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Now, we've made the revolutionary discovery that children have two parents. A decade ago even the kindly Dr. Spock held mothers solely responsible for children. ~ Gloria Steinem

This was when he first suspected that the kindly child-loving God extolled by his headmistress might not exist. As it turned out, most major world events suggested the same. But for Theo's sincerely godless generation, the question hasn't come up. No one in his bright, plate-glass, forward-looking school ever asked him to pray, or sing an impenetrable cheery hymn. There's no entity for him to doubt. His initiation, in front of the TV, before the dissolving towers, was intense but he adapted quickly. These days he scans the papers for fresh developments the way he might a listings magazine. As long as there's nothing new, his mind is free. International terror, security cordons, preparations for war - these represent the steady state, the weather. Emerging into adult consciousness, this is the world he finds. ~ Ian McEwan

History has a kindly way of glossing over little faults like brigandage, slaughter, piracy, and assaults on women, especially when the perpetrators possess titles and landed estates. ~ Elizabeth Peters

A lot of people still maintain genre prejudice. I still meet matrons who tell me kindly that their children enjoyed my books but of course they never read them, and people who make sure I know they don't read that space-ship stuff. No, no, they read Literature - realism. Like The Help, or Fifty Shades of Grey. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only change of worlds. ~ Chief Seattle

I shall think more kindly of dwarves after this. Killed the Great Goblin, killed the Great Goblin!" he chuckled fiercely to himself. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Your defining voice, your generosity, your grace, and when you allow His Spirit to live freely in you, then, and only then, will you have the energy and wisdom to live the Christian life well. It is His work, and He will kindly carry your load. ~ Sally Clarkson

Alek," I said. "Would you kindly slam the door in my father's face? ~ Annie Bellet

Well, that was fun," Grandpa said as he climbed to his feet. "Anyone dead?"
"Does my pride count?" Draulin asked, dusting herself off.
"I don't think so," Grandpa said. "I killed that years ago. Dif, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but shoving my grandson out of planes is usually my job. So next time, kindly refrain until I give the word."
"Sorry, sir," Dif said, looking abashed. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly slice him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed him to the seven-headed dogs. ~ L. Frank Baum

When the gods know that a god hath fallen, With this kindly feeling They do encourage him
Be thou a god again and again. ~ T. S. Eliot

So: 'Why did you laugh?' demanded Philippa, and shook Jerott's hand off her arm.

'Oh, that?' said Lymond. 'But, my dear child, the picture was irresistible. Daddy, afflicted but purposeful, ransacking the souks of the Levant for one of his bastards, with an unchaperoned North Country schoolgirl aged - what? twelve? thirteen? - to help change its napkins when the happy meeting takes place.… A gallant thought, Philippa,' said Lymond kindly, sitting down at the table. 'And a touching faith in mankind. But truly, all the grown-up ladies and gentlemen would laugh themselves into bloody fluxes over the spectacle. Have some whatever-it-is. ~ Dorothy Dunnett

There's Ireland for you now, McGlynn, all of it. Unending rain rattling the windows, and inside a kindly woman boasting about her clerical relations, and two men drinking whiskey, and outside the rest of the world. If Michelangelo painted the Resurrection on her smoky ceiling she wouldn't give it a look or him a thank-you if her portly cousin His Reverence were within miles of the place. Once upon a time we exported scholars and culture to the Continent. Now we export nothing but beasts and priests, God help us. ~ Val Mulkerns

When an artist friend of mine explained she was working her way up the creative ladder, I asked if she would kindly paint the front of my house on the way up. ~ Benny Bellamacina

As a man cannot lift a mountain, and as a kindly man cannot kill an infant, so a man living the Christian life cannot take part in deeds of violence. Of what value then to him are arguments about the imaginary advantages of doing what is morally impossible for him to do? ~ Leo Tolstoy

I feel called to minister to telephone marketers. You know, the kind who call at inconvenient hours and deliver their spiel before you can say a word." Immediately I flashed back to the times I have responded rudely or simply hung up. "All day long these sales callers hear people curse at them and slam the phone down," she continued. "I listen attentively to their pitch, then I try to respond kindly, though I almost never buy what they're selling. Instead, I ask about their personal life and whether they have any concerns I can pray for. Often they ask me to pray with them over the phone, and sometimes they are in tears. They're people, after all, probably underpaid, and they're surprised when someone treats them with common courtesy. ~ Philip Yancey

I've worked with the old dames and knights - Edith Evans, Ralph Richardson - they're the most incredibly humble, kindly people because they are so big that they don't need to be unpleasant. ~ Ron Moody

I read stories aloud at every stage. I listen to my writer friends when they kindly offer criticism. I listen to my husband when he tells me something doesn't seem right. I have my mother's boyfriend, Loring Janes, read to make sure I get everything right with the machines and guns. ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell

Though solitude, endured too long,
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,
And overclouds my noon of day;
When kindly thoughts that would have way,
Flow back discouraged to my breast;
I know there is, though far away,
A home where heart and soul may rest.
Warm hands are there, that, clasped in mine,
The warmer heart will not belie;
While mirth, and truth, and friendship shine
In smiling lip and earnest eye.
The ice that gathers round my heart
May there be thawed; and sweetly, then,
The joys of youth, that now depart,
Will come to cheer my soul again. ~ Anne Bronte

There was a little corner of his mind that was still his own, and light came through it, as though a chink in the dark: light out of the past. It was actually pleasant, I think, to hear a kindly voice agin, bringing up memories of wind, and trees, and sun on the grass, and such forgotten things. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

I am Mrs. Poulteney. I have come to take up residence. Kindly inform your Master."
"His Infinitude has been informed of your decease, ma'am. His angels have already sung a Jubilate in celebration of the event."
"That is most proper and kind of Him." And the worthy lady, pluming and swelling, made to sweep into the imposing white hall she saw beyond the butler's head. But the man did not move aside. Instead, he rather impertinently jangled some keys he chanced to have in his hand.
"My man! Make way. I am she. Mrs. Poulteney of Lyme Regis."
"Formerly of Lyme Regis, ma'am. And now of a much more tropical abode."
With that, the brutal flunkey slammed the door in her face. ~ John Fowles

This is a recorded announcement," it said, "as I'm afraid we're all out at the moment. The commercial council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit ... " ("A voice from ancient Magrathea!" shouted Zaphod. "Okay, okay," said Ford.) " ... but regrets," continued the voice, "that the entire planet is temporarily closed for business. Thank you. If you would care to leave your name and the address of a planet where you can be contacted, kindly speak when you hear the tone. ~ Douglas Adams

Goodness is to do good to the deserving and love the good and hate the wicked, and not to be eager to inflict punishment or take vengeance, but to be gracious and kindly and forgiving. ~ Aristotle.

These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger - when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile - when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders - even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt. ~ Charlotte Bronte

God darkens our awareness in order to keep us safe. When we cannot chart our own course, we become vulnerable to God's protection, and the darkness becomes a "guiding night," a "night more kindly than the dawn."5 ~ Gerald G. May

It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace. ~ Blaise Pascal

What a beautiful name," Kimberly said. "Does it mean anything? I love multicultural names because they have such wonderful meanings, from wonderful rich cultures." Kimberly was smiling the kindly smile of people who thought "culture" the unfamiliar colorful reserve of colorful people, a word that always had to be qualified with "rich." She would not think Norway had a "rich culture. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Muhammad preached his farewell sermon to the Muslim community. He reminded them to deal justly with one another, to treat women kindly, and to abandon the blood feuds and vendettas inspired by the spirit of jahiliyyah. Muslim must never fight against Muslim. ~ Karen Armstrong