Ron Hansen Quotes

#1. As Jesse talked the sun down, the hours late, Zerelda smiled and dreamed of him as he had been and was and would be. It seemed everything about him was dynamic and masculine and romantic ; he was more vital even in his illness than any man she'd ever known.

Ron Hansen

#2. Bob slid his chair back and moved the coal-oil lamp from the kitchen to the sitting room. He said, "Oftentimes things seem impossible up until they're attempted." Then he lidded the chimney glass with his palm and suffocated the light.

Ron Hansen

#3. We try to be formed and held and kept by him, but instead he offers us freedom. And now when I try to know his will, his kindness floods me, his great love overwhelms me, and I hear him whisper, Surprise me.

Ron Hansen

#4. Jesse rounded forward under the towel and cozied his feet in the bath water. It was as if no one else were around and Jesse was once again alone and at ease with his meditations. He said, "I can't figure it out: do you want to be like me, or do you want to be me?

Ron Hansen

#5. You hear people mention being in love. It's like a sickness I've never had.

Ron Hansen

#6. Jesse said, "You know what we are, Tim? We're nighthawks. We're the ones who go out at night and guard everything so people can sleep in peace. We've got our eyes peeled; no one's going to slip anything past us.

Ron Hansen

#7. Inside, cooking smells maneuvered through the house: cow liver, sweet potatoes, stewed onions, cabbage - scents that were as assertive as colors.

Ron Hansen

#8. Then the night lessened, the clouds ashened slightly, and the men became starkly black and brown against the gray of the snow.

Ron Hansen

#9. He also had a condition that was referred to as granulated eyelids and it caused him to blink more than usual, as if he found creation slightly more than he could accept.

Ron Hansen

#10. A man of principles," Jesse said.

"People say that about themselves when really they only want to make you unhappy.

Ron Hansen

#11. Bob was not yet twenty, after all, while Jesse was thirty-four and in physical decline; each calendar week subtracted from Jesse the powers that Bob accrued.

Ron Hansen

#12. No one talked as Jesse moved - it was as if his acts were miracles of invention wonderous to behold.

Ron Hansen

#13. They weren't penitent over what they'd attempted; their sorrow reached to the limits of their bodies and no further, all their anguish was in their skin.

Ron Hansen

#14. but nothing upset and preoccupied him like the phrase whatever they dread most, that will happen. It seemed more than a simple curse; there was the ring of something presaging and prophetic about it, it was the sort of thing Jesse would say.

Ron Hansen