Gabrielle Zevin Quotes

I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding of what forgiving is.

Life without forgiveness is unbearable.

Then she made up her mind.It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist.It no longer hurt her to see him. She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.

What was the point of being able to forgive, when deep down, you both had to admit you'd never forget?

Forgiveness doesn't sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up a hill.

Forgive! How many will say, forgive, and find a sort of absolution in the sound to hate a little longer!

Forgiving doesn't make the person who hurt you feel better, it makes you feel better.

Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude. That which I was not but could have been. That which I would have done but did not do. Can I find the fortitude to remember in truth,to understand, to submit, to forgive and to be free to move on in time?

I think the hardest thing in life is to forgive. Hate is self destructive. If you hate somebody, you're not hurting the person you hate, you're hurting yourself. It's a healing, actually, it's a real healing...forgiveness.

Forgiveness should be an act, but this is a state with him.

It's not easy to forgive. I definitely don't forget, but I do forgive and I think that you should.

Forgive the person who badly hurt you long ago and also the stranger who stepped on your toe in the grocery store.

All this time, Lev ever realized what he needed. He did not need to be adored or pitied. He needed to be forgiven. Not by God, who is all forgiving. Not by people like Marcus and Pastor Dan, who would always stand by his side. He needed to be forgiven by an unforgiving world.

The trouble with forgiveness is that some people don't want to be forgiven.

It was about forgiving. I understood that forgiveness itself was strong, durable—like strands of a web weaving around us, holding us.

The worst part of all is that, without forgiveness, bitterness is all that is left

I know forgiveness is a man's duty, but, to my thinking, that can only mean as you're to give up all thoughts o' taking revenge: it can never mean as you're t' have your old feelings back again, for that's not possible.

Understanding is often a prelude to forgiveness, but they are not the same, and we often forgive what we cannot understand (seeing nothing else to do) and understand what we cannot pardon.

What have I to forgive and whom?

How can I forgive if you are not ready to give up that which caused you to stumble?

I think there are different levels of forgiveness.

I think that maybe forgiveness is like change - it comes in small steps. (256)

We each have been betrayed. Let yourself picture and remember the many ways this is true. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this past. Now sense that you can release this burden of pain by gradually extending forgiveness as your heart is ready.

The very person you find it hardest to forgive is the one you need to let go of the most. Forgiveness means letting go. It has nothing to do with condoning behavior, it's just letting the whole thing go. We do not have to know how to forgive. All we need to do is be willing to forgive. The Universe will take care of the hows.