Wallace Stegner Quotes

Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death. Why shouldst thou be afraid to die, who hopest to live by dying!

There's a lot to be concerned about; there's more to be hopeful for.

If the grain of wheat could know fear, it would be paralyzed with anxiety at the thought of being dropped in the ground, covered over, put out of sight, doomed to inactivity, yet what a glorious harvest awaits it!

Where refugees seek deliverance that never comesAnd the heart consumes itself as if it would live,Where children age before their timeAnd life wears down the edges of the mind,Where the old man sits with mind grown cold,While bones and sinew, blood and cell, go slowly down to death,Where fear companions each day's life,And Perfect Love seems long delayed.CHRISTMAS IS WAITING TO BE BORN:In you, in me, in all mankind.

Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied; We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died.

Writing, painting, singing -- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death's footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.

Light is to darkness what love is to fear; in the presence of one the other disappears.

Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope.

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!

Then sail, my fine lady, on the billowing wave - The water below is as dark as the grave, And maybe you'll sink in your little blue boat - It's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat

Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.

I would not choose to go where I would be afraid to die, nor could I bear to live without a good hope for hereafter.

Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.

The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.

You're not going to die. I forbid it. All right?" "All right," he whispers.

If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage." As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips. "Are you dying for him?" she whispered. "And his wife and child. Hush! Yes." "Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?" "Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.

This is the fear: death will come and we have not lived yet. We are just preparing to live. Nothing is ready; life has not happened. We have not known the ecstasy which life is; we have not known the bliss life is; we have not known anything. We have just been breathing in and out. We have been just existing. Life has been just a hope and death is coming near. And if life has not yet happened and death happens before it, of course, obviously, we will be afraid because we would not like to die.

I'm not personally fearful, but I look out, and there are a number of things that concern me, and I'm hopeful that we can overcome them.

On days where I feel the karma is in balance I'm not afraid of death. And when I feel it's weighing heavily on the negative side, then I get very scared and just think about eternal damnation and how unpleasant that would be.

The saddest birds a season find to sing,The roughest storm a calm may soon allay;Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,That men may hope to rise yet fear to fall.

We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

Death - Death can be faced, dealt with, adjusted to, outlived. It's the not knowing that destroys interminably... This being suspended in suspense; waiting - weightless, How does one face the faceless, adjust to nothing? Waiting implies something to wait for. Is there? There is One. One who knows... I rest my soul on that.