Marilynne Robinson Quotes

I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water.

come back believer in shade believer in silence and elegance believer in ferns believer in patience believer in the rain

I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine and tranquil upon tideflats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies hovering a long way off.

Old pond, frog jumps in - plop.

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?

I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me. The sea.

At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water

There's something about the water - that solitary kind of peaceful feeling. You're on Earth but not quite.

It was night and I could see a large and calm lake, reflecting the moon. Black mountains rose around it. I arrived from between two of these mountains, I looked at the lake and the moon, and that was it, nothing else happened.

Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose.

I've begun to realize, as I'm getting older, that I was taught to go for a certain kind of stillness to get things done. I missed that in my life. I loved my grandmother's property, out in South Georgia right above the Florida line, so I just thought I'd find some property where I could feel that again.

The hostility of this landscape teaches me how to be quiet and unobtrusive, how to find grace among spiders with a poisonous bite. I sat on a lone boulder in the midst of the curlews. By now, they had grown accustomed to me. This too, I found encouraging-that in the face of stressful intrusions, we can eventually settle in. One begins to almost trust the intruder as a presence that demands greater intent toward life. On a day like today when the air is dry and smells of salt, I have found my open space, my solitude, and sky. And I have found the birds who require it.

Old pond, leap-splash - a frog.

The great stillness in these landscapes that once made me restless seeps into me day by day, and with it the unreasonable feeling that I have found what I was searching for without ever having discovered what it was.

Gentle day's flower - The hummingbird competes With the stillness of the air.

Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.

Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.

It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.

The winds with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kisst.

There is a peacefulness, an air of reflection, about a rocking-chair that attaches to no other moving object.

Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.

Beautiful, see the cloud, the cloud appear. Beautiful, see the rain, the rain draw near.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

Sunshine on the water looks so lovely