Therese Quotes

Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.

The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.

For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.

Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.

The world's thy ship and not thy home.

Won’t we be quite the pair?—you with your bad heart, me with my bad head. Together, though, we might have something worthwhile.

Do you realize that Jesus is there in the tabernacle expressly for you- for you alone? He burns with the desire to come into your heart… don’t listen to the demon, laugh at him, and go without fear to receive the Jesus of peace and love…

If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.

The closer one approaches to God, the simpler one becomes.

When there is no hope in the future, the present appears atrociously bitter.

On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide—it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese—the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.

I know now that true charity consists in bearing all our neighbors'defects--not being surprised at their weakness, but edified at their smallest virtues.

It's true, I suffer a great deal--but do I suffer well? That is the question.

If only people could travel as easily as words. Wouldn't that be something? If only we could be so easily revised.

Maybe I’m strange and perverse, but I’ve always thought there was something sexy about a compelling argument.

But when they kissed goodnight in bed, Therese felt their sudden release, that leap of response in both of them, as if their bodies were of some materials which put together inevitably created desire.

When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens,I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.

What could be duller than past history!' Therese said, smiling. 'Maybe futures that won't have any history.

Trust and trust alone should lead us to love

My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice, these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know it by experience.

It is better to leave each one in his own opinion than to enter into arguments.

At any rate, Therese thought, she was happier than she ever had been before. And why worry about defining everything?

There's nothing like losing yourself in someone else's troubles to make you forget your own.

Some rules are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change.

I let it boil and it's got scum on it," Carol said annoyedly. "I'm sorry." But Therese loved it, because she knew this was exactly what Carol would always do, be thinking of something else and let the milk boil.

Was life, were human relations like this always, Therese wondered. Never solid ground underfoot. Always like gravel, a little yielding, noisy so the whole world could hear, so one always listened, too, for the loud, harsh step of the intruder's foot.

Adventure:' there's a word that worked on us both like a charm.

When you walk a life of honesty, you live a life of truth.

Marie-Therese : Something needs to be done about that gentleman caller of hers. Xhex : Something was, but it didn't go far enough. And if he's a gentleman, I'm Estée fucking Lauder.

They roared into the Lincoln Tunnel. A wild, inexplicable excitement mounted in Therese as she stared through the windshield. She wished the tunnel might cave in and kill them both, that their bodies might be dragged out together. She felt Carol glancing at her from time to time.

I am convinced that one should tell one's spiritual director if one has a great desire for Communion, for Our Lord does not come from Heaven every day to stay in a golden ciborium; He comes to find another heaven, the heaven of our soul in which He loves to dwell.

i can nourish myself on nothing but truth

The dusky and faintly sweet smell of her perfume came to Therese again, a smell suggestive of dark green silk, that was hers alone, like the smell of a special flower.

A soul in a state of grace has nothing to fear of demons who are cowards.

There was no way to know that certainty would one day become a luxury, too.

Carol looked at her. "How do you become a poet?" "By feeling things - too much, I suppose," Therese answered conscientiously.

Nothing except luck protects you from catastrophe. Not love. Not money. Not faith. Not a pure heart or good deeds--and not bad ones either, for that matter. We can, any of us, be laid low, cut down, diminished, destroyed.

when something painful or disagreeable happens to me, instead of a melancholy look, I answer by a smile. At first I did not always succeed, but now it has become a habit which I am glad to have acquired.

Marry me, Zelda. We'll make it all up as we go. What do you say?

I’ve come to wonder whether artists in particular seek out hard times the way flowers turn their faces toward the sun.

For me, prayer is an aspiration of the heart, it is a simple glance directed to heaven, it is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as joy; finally it is something great, supernatural, which expands my soul and unites me to Jesus.

Carol raised her hand slowly and brushed her hair back, once on either side, and Therese smiled because the gesture was Carol, and it was Carol she loved and would always love. Oh, in a different way now because she was a different person, and it was like meeting Carol all over again, but it was still Carol and no one else. It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell. Therese waited. Then as she was about to go to her, Carol saw her, seemed to stare at her incredulously a moment while Therese watched the slow smile growing, before her arm lifted suddenly, her hand waved a quick, eager greeting that Therese had never seen before. Therese walked toward her.

If the river has a soul, it's a peaceful one. If it has a lesson to impart, that lesson is patience. There will be drought, it says; there will be floods; the ice will form, the ice will melt; the water will flow and blend into the river's brackish mouth, then join the ocean between Lewes and Cape May, endlessly, forever, amen.

In order that love be fully satisfied, It is necessary that It lower Itself and that It lower Itself to nothingness and transform this nothingness into fire.

joy is not found in the things which surround us, but lives only in the soul.

No writer should be the same as another, that’s not art.

the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy.

How much poorer history would be if there hadn’t been so many artistically talented perverts in days gone by.

He smiled then, and I felt that smile like a vibration moving through me, the way you might feel if you walked through a ghost or it walked through you.

You know how to dance in sunlight when everything is going fine, but you have to learn to dance in darkness when the sun is gone and nothing is going well.

Go often to Holy Communion. Go very often! This is your one remedy.

-¿Hay algo más aburrido que la historia del pasado? -dijo Therese sonriendo. -Quizá un futuro sin historia.

Just as the sun shines on all the trees and flowers as if each were the only one on earth, so does God care for all souls in a special manner.

Jesus does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude.

Here, I think we have some old bedsheets - dye them black with the ashes of your self-respect and sew them together.

In my experience, there were two kinds of men. One type—no matter how plain or how poor he might be—is always willing to at least try his luck with an attractive girl. The other type looks upon all of those first types with envy.

Leaving your religion and having to invent your own system of values is a big deal, after all.

This was Scott. This is Scott, always looking back to try to figure out how to go forward, where happiness and prosperity must surely await.

Ah! How contrary are the teachings of Jesus to the feelings of nature! Without the help of His grace it would be impossible not only to put them into practice, but to even understand them.

We glared at each other then, with the kind of hatred that comes from being deliberately wounded in one’s softest, most vulnerable places by a person who used to love you passionately.

I said before, that I have learnt much by guiding others. In the first place I see that all souls have more or less the same battles to fight, and on the other hand, that one soul differs widely from another, so each must be dealt with differently.

But I am not going to give every detail. Some things lose their fragrance when opened to the air, and there are stirrings of the soul which cannot be put into words without destroying their delicacy.

Their eyes met at the same instant moment, Therese glancing up from a box she was opening, and the woman just turning her head so she looked directly at Therese. She was tall and fair, her long figure graceful in the loose fur coat that she held open with a hand on her waist, her eyes were grey, colorless, yet dominant as light or fire, and, caught by them, Therese could not look away. She heard the customer in front of her repeat a question, and Therese stood there, mute. The woman was looking at Therese, too, with a preoccupied expression, as if half her mind were on whatever is was she meant to buy here, and though there were a number of salesgirls between them, There felt sure the woman would come to her, Then, Then Therese saw her walk slowly towards the counter, heard her heart stumble to catch up with the moment it had let pass, and felt her face grow hot as the woman came nearer and nearer.

Remember, the center of a woman is her uterus. Her crazy, crazy uterus.

It is wrong to pass one’s time in fretting, instead of sleeping on the Heart of Jesus.

There would be too much everything and not enough anything, and then where would that leave us?

... while I bathed, while I tried but failed to sleep, I considered how I might become more like the women I respected and admired. Surrounded as I was by ambitious, accomplished women, I couldn't ignore the little voice in my head that said maybe I was supposed to shed halfway, and do something significant. Contribute something. Accomplish something. Choose. Be.

I want to see the world without explaining away its mystery by calling things wicked, righteous, sinful, and good. I want to erase in myself the easy explanations, the always mendacious explanations about why things happen the way they do, and in this way, come to know the mystery of being–-not by any approximation in thought, but by being. I want to be and not be ashamed of being.

Being a doctor he didn't want for choices, but also being a doctor he understood the fragility of bone and sinew that encompassed the even more fragile organ of the heart. He envisioned Therese's as being wound in intricate, tight, vinelike veins that he would slowly make sense of and unravel.

I have at last found my vocation; it is love!

I understand and I know from experience that: 'The kingdom of God is within you.' Jesus has no need of books or teachers to instruct souls; He teaches without the noise of words. Never have I heard Him speak, but I feel that He is within me at each moment; He is guiding and inspiring me with what I must say and do. I find just when I need them certain lights that I had not seen until then, and it isn't most frequently during my hours of prayer that these are most abundant but rather in the midst of my daily occupations.

Like certain devotees, who think they can fool God and wrest a pardon by paying lip-service to prayer and adopting the humble attitude of the penitent, Therese humiliated herself, beat her chest, found words of repentance, without having anything in the bottom of her heart except fear and cowardice.

Don't you want to forget it, if it's past?" "I don't know. I don't know just how you mean that." "I mean, are you sorry?" "No. Would I do the same thing again? Yes." "Do you mean with somebody else, or with her?" "With her," Therese said.

they seemed to be greater strangers than before

If only. Were there sadder words than these?

Therese had read about that special pleasure people got from the fact that someone they loved was attractive in the eyes of other people, too. She simply didn’t have it.

Finally, Carol said in a tone of hopelessness, "Darling, can I ask you to forgive me?" The tone hurt Therese more than the question. "I love you, Carol." "But do you see what it means?

Carol raised her hand slowly and brushed her hair back, once on either side, and Therese smiled because the gesture was Carol, and it was Carol she loved and would always love. Oh, in a different way now, because she was a different person, and it was like meeting Carol all over again, but it was still Carol and no one else. It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell.

This is what we've got at the moment, who we are. It's not nearly what we once had- the good, I mean- but it's also not what we once had, meaning the bad.

But Carol had not betrayed her. Carol loved her more than she loved her child. That was part of the reason why she had not promised. She was gambling now as she had gambled on getting everything from the detective that day on the road, and she lost then, too. And now she saw Carol's face changing, saw the little signs of astonishment and shock so subtle that perhaps only she in the world could have noticed them, and Therese could not think for a moment.

He does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He will.

Single women could work all they wanted; married women locked themselves into a gilded cage. All of that had seemed natural before. Now, it made me angry. Now, I saw how a woman might sometimes want to steer her own course rather than trail her husband like a favored dog.

Then, beside myself with joy, I cried out: "O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love! Yes, I have found my place in the bosom of the Church, and this place, O my God, Thou hast Thyself given to me: in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be LOVE! . . .

Women are formed for love, yes, but also for purpose, and the highest state for a woman—for all humans, in fact—comes when one discovers and then achieves one’s ultimate purpose.

My God, I choose everything, I will not be a Saint by halves, I am not afraid of suffering for Thee, I only fear one thing, and that is to do my own will. Accept the offering of my will, for I choose all that Thou willest.

Thus the ordinary, uncontrolled chattering we call “prose” changes its nature, like coal becoming incandescent. Poetry resembles music.

His eyes, grayish green in that light, reminded me of the rare icicle in Montgomery, or a pebbled creek's rushing stream in early spring. They revealed his intelligence in a way that made me want to dive inside his head and swim in its depths.

It shook Therese in the profoundest part of her where no words were, no easy words like death or dying or killing Those words were somehow future, and this was present. An inarticulate anxiety, a desire to know, know anything for certain, had jammed itself in her throat for a moment she felt she could hardly breathe.

Once the back of their hands brushed on the table, and Therese's skin there felt seperately alive and rather burning. There could not understand it, but it was so. Therese glanced at her face that was somewhat turned away, and again she knew that instant of half-recognition. And knew, too, that it was not to be believed. She had never seen the woman before. If she had, could she had forgotten?

How can a heart given up to human affections be closely united to God? It seems to me that it is impossible. I have seen so many souls, allured by this false light, fly right into it like poor moths, and burn their wings, and then return, wounded, to Our Lord, the Divine fire which burns and does not consume.

In Socorro, he began wrapping his chest in a white bandage, and by Las Cruces, he’d learned to walk again, legs wide, shoulders square. He told himself that it was safer to hitchhike this way, but the truth was that he’d always been Reese. By Tucson, it was Therese who felt like a costume. How real was a person if you could shed her in a thousand miles?

is more profitable to leave everyone to his way of thinking than to give way to contentious discourses.

But if my research shows anything, it's that if you should happen to have had a surplus of mellow marmosets and they got the job done, you would have darned well used marmosets.

I know. Gag me with a wimple.

Therese was propped up on one elbow. The milk was so hot, she could barely let her lip touch it at first. The tiny sips spread inside her mouth and released a melange of organic flavors. The milk seemed to taste of bone and blood, of warm flesh, or hair, saltless as chalk yet alive as a growing embryo. It was hot through and through to the bottom of the cup, and Therese drank it down, as people in fairy tales drink the potion that will transform, or the unsuspecting warrior the cup that will kill, Then Carol came and took the cup, and Therese was drowsily aware that Carol asked her three questions, on that had to do with happiness, one about the store and one about the future. Therese heard herself answering. She heard her voice rise suddenly in a babble, like a spring that she had no control over, and she realized she was in tears. She was telling Carol all that she feared and disliked, of her loneliness, of Richard, and of gigantic disappointments.

Scott is gone. I've had two days with this truth. This truth and me, we're acquainted now, past the shock of our first unhappy meeting and into the uneasy-cohabitation stage. Its barbs are slightly duller than they were that first night, when even breathing felt agonizing and wrong. Tootsie and Marjorie hovered over me, waiting to see whether I'd collapse, while Mama looked on, white-faced, from her rocker by the fire. "Gone?" I would whisper, to no-one in particular. I, too, waited for me to be overwhelmed - but all that happened was what happens to anyone who has lost their one love: my heart cleaved into two parts, before and foreverafterward.

It is not because I have been preserved from mortal sin that I lift up my heart to God in trust and love. I feel that even had I on my conscience every crime one could commit, I should lose nothing of my confidence: my heart broken with sorrow, I would throw myself into the Arms of my Saviour. I know that He loves the Prodigal Son, I have heard His words to St. Mary Magdalen, to the woman taken in adultery, and to the woman of Samaria. No one could frighten me, for I know what to believe concerning His Mercy and His Love. And I know that all that multitude of sins would disappear in an instant, even as a drop of water cast into a flaming furnace.

Even if you have suffered, even if you have sometimes been disappointed by life, even if, at certain times, you had the feeling that God was very far away (we all have this feeling when living through a time of trial) or had abandoned you, in spite of all of that, never doubt God’s love, never doubt his faithfulness.

Jesus needs nothing but your humility and your confidence to work marvels of purification and sanctification in you. And your confidence will be in proportion to your humility, because it is to the extent that we realize our need of Jesus that we have recourse to Him, and we sense this need to the extent that we justly realize our unworthiness.

However, society is only composed of weak persons and strong; well, if the pact must perforce displease both weak and strong, there is great cause to suppose it will fail to suit society, and the previously existing state of warfare must appear infinitely preferable, since it permitted everyone the free exercise of his strength and his industry, whereof he would discover himself deprived by a society's unjust pact which takes too much from the one and never accords enough to the other; hence, the truly intelligent person is he who, indifferent to the risk of renewing the state of war that reigned prior to the contract, lashes out in irrevocable violation of that contract, violates it as much and often as he is able, full certain that what he will gain from these ruptures will always be more important than what he will lose if he happens to be a member of the weaker class; for such he was when he respected the treaty; by breaking it he may become one of the stronger; and if the laws return him to the class whence he wished to emerge, the worst that can befall him is the loss of his life, which is a misfortune infinitely less great than that of existing in opprobrium and wretchedness. There are then two positions available to us: either crime, which renders us happy, or the noose, which prevents us from being unhappy. I ask whether there can be any hesitation, lovely Therese, and where will your little mind find an argument able to combat that one?