Marilynne Robinson Quotes

I'm always attracted to the vulnerable character more than I am the superhero.

A stricken tree, a living thing, so beautiful, so dignified, so admirable in its potential longevity, is, next to man, perhaps the most touching of wounded objects.

What I write is emotionally honest and truthful as the human experience can be, to make people feel less alone, or at least that's the hope.

More was revealed in a human face than a human being can bear face to face.

It took years after I’d graduated from Amherst to realize that people were actually far more complicated and interesting than books, that almost everyone else suffered the same secret fears and inadequacies as I, and that feeling alone and inferior was actually the great valent bond between us all. I wish I’d been smart enough to understand that when I was an adolescent.

It always shocked me when I realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world who thought and felt such strange and awful things.

No, I won't try to escape myself by losing myself in artificial chatter 'Did you have a nice vacation?' 'Oh, yes, and you?' I'll stay here and try to pin that loneliness down.

The purpose of fiction is to combat loneliness.

King Kong, Count Dracula, and the Phantom of the Opera are just looking for love, like the rest of us.

There's something about the authenticity rather than the autobiography that makes my story and my pain move across and become your story and your pain.

I have found it impossible to talk to anyone about my problems. I couldn't face the embarrassment, and anyway I lack the courage. Any courage I had was knocked out of me when I was young. But now, all of sudden I have a sort of desperate wish to tell everything to somebody.

There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.

If one didn't have love, was it better, then, to be alone?

The loneliness of another can be shocking when it lays itself bare without warning.

Leaders must display their humanness. Those under their authority must be empowered & have the courage to engage in honest dialogue.

We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?

The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters.

Many people today believe that cynicism requires courage. Actually, cynicism is the height of cowardice. It is innocence and open-heartednes s that requires the true courage -- however often we are hurt as a result of it.

I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.

When we begin to look around us, to observe individuals and societies, and to study philosophies and religions, we realize that our loneliness is shared. Our solitude is plural, and our singularity is the similarity between us.

What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?

I learned long ago that in order to heal my wounds, I must have the courage to face up with them.

Face to face, just you and me, with no rules. Just like you, I get lonely too.

Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision.