Leif Enger > Quotes

“I knew he used to call the old man Saturday mornings to talk baseball or politics, trying to keep him from sinking into the marsh of incurious disapproval that swallows so many ancients.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“The firelight had restored his face to healthy color and she, all Frenchbraided, scarf unslung, resembled an opportunity missed by Rembrandt.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“It was wonderful and gauzy, going to sleep that way, like drifting in a small boat over a rippling sea.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Is there a single person on whom I can press belief?

No sir.

All I can do is say, Here's how it went. Here's what I saw.

I've been there and am going back.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“Next morning at church the pastor said our beautiful visitor {the Great Comet of 1965} meant war was coming (...). At twelve I was unsure what to make of his sweltering interpretation but noticed a strain of quiet annoyance in my stepmom's demeanor driving home. When I asked about the promised war and how we ought to get ready, she pulled the car over and looked in my eyes. Her kindness has like water over smooth stones. She said Pastor Leake was a decent man who often mistook his worldview for the world, a common churchman's error. She said the church was a broken compass. That our job always and forever was to refuse Apocalypse in all its forms and work cheerfully against it.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“Lark’s theory of angels was that they are us and we mostly don’t remember.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“Days later under northern skies he understood that its presence in the pickup only made him heartsick and he unloaded it cheap to the farmer, who, though confused by Spanish, understood burdens and the need to escape them.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“Waltzer was stirred by the boy’s assurance under stress. Waltzer believed in invented destiny and invented some then and there.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“We all dream of finding but what’s wrong with looking? When the sun rises we’ll know what to do.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“People fear miracles because they fear being changed—though ignoring them will change you also.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“We understood the margins where we lived. Some still enjoyed resenting the far-flung coasts for their gleam and influence, but I think we all accepted the grace of the overlooked.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“I've always admired the unhurried.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“She said Pastor Leake was a decent man who often mistook his worldview for the world, a common churchman’s error. She said the church was a broken compass. That our job always and forever was to refuse Apocalypse in all its forms and work cheerfully against it.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“Those thieves and lovers and wandering poets- what big lives they had! I began watching everyone I met for secret greatness.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“His sadness seemed complete. It had left him nothing, no proper enjoyment, no Saturday mornings. Sadness wore him like a tailored suit.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“a clean bass line is barely heard yet gives to each according to their need.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“But these activities—whining about what's fair, begging forgiveness, hoping for a miracle—these demand energy, and that was gone from me. Contentment on the other hand demands little, and I drew more and more into its circle.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“It made me think of Penelope waiting for Odysseus—Penelope at her loom, not missing a trick, lumpen suitors everywhere.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“I'd long thought of her as an unfading Penelope, but that was the lazy eye of infatuation. In truth she'd aged more than the decade elapsed since Alec disappeared. Yet somehow the years revealed her strength. Like a willow she turned all weathers to advantage.”
― Leif Enger

“it began to resemble what I once imagined church might be like, a church you could bear, where people laughed and enjoyed each other and did not care if they were right all the time or if other people were wrong.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“She seemed to belong here, though maybe she was the sort to belong wherever she was at the time.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“Good advice is a wise man’s friend, of course; but sometimes it just flies on past, and all you can do is wave.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry. He delivered all news as though it were good. Most welcome was his prediction that language would gradually return.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“What mortal creations are language and memory!”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“Sometimes the devil you know is bad enough to chance the one you don’t.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“is worry’s sly assassin.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

“I never was anyone's parent, so this rapid expansion of love and terror confounded me.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“He felt confusion coming. The world was confused. It was running out of everything, especially future.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“Make of that what you will.”
― Leif Enger, Peace Like a River