Wecker Quotes

#1. I think I'd miss the dreams.
Wecker, Helene (2013-04-23). The Golem and the Jinni (P.S.) (p. 59). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Helene Wecker

#2. The tide of her exhilaration drained from her, leaving her exhausted and heartsick. She would have bound the entire city, made them all into her golems, to satisfy her own need to be useful.

Helene Wecker

#3. He'd lived so long in anticipation of his own death that to contemplate his future was like standing at the edge of a cliff, staring into a vertiginous rush of open sky.

Helene Wecker

#4. They'd need no reason!" shouted Arbeely. "Why can't you understand? Men need no reason to cause mischief, only an excuse!

Helene Wecker

#5. Judge a man by his actions, not his thoughts.

Helene Wecker

#6. All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how any people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears.

Helene Wecker

#7. And perhaps the humans did create their God. But does that make him less real? Take this arch. They created it. Now it exists.

Helene Wecker

#8. His work was more of an education than a classroom could ever offer.

Helene Wecker

#9. The human body is like a piece of fabric. No matter how well one cares for it, it frays as it ages.

Helene Wecker

#10. If God was so literal in his resurrections, humanity would be brought back in a state of decay so advanced that the marks of dissection would seem minor in comparison.

Helene Wecker

#11. If the act of love is so dangerous, why do people risk so much for it?

Helene Wecker

#12. I look at what we call faith, and all I see is superstition and subjugation. All religions [ ... ] They create false divisions, and enslave us to fantasies, when we need to focus on the here and now.

Helene Wecker

#13. Sometimes men want what they don't have because they don't have it. Even if everyone offered to share, they would only want the share that wasn't theirs.

Helene Wecker

#14. Her eyes. The Jinni watched the girl sprint excitedly back the way she'd come, driving her goats before her. He smiled, and wondered what a girl such as she might dream about.

Helene Wecker

#15. And I still don't understand the purpose of a wedding. What could possibly induce two free beings to partner only with each other for the rest of their existence?

Helene Wecker

#16. And if there was little honor in thieving from a thief, he imagined he would feel little shame in it, either.

Helene Wecker

#17. If I didn't sleep," Arbeely mused, "I think I'd miss the dreams.

Helene Wecker

#18. It was gratifying, to hear that rare laugh. He felt as though he'd earned it.

Helene Wecker

#19. We must grow beyond it! Why reinforce our differences, and keep ancient laws, and never know the joy of breaking bread with our neighbors?

Helene Wecker

#20. It's his duty. A good healer can't pick and choose. If he can help, then he must.

Helene Wecker

#21. Her father, indulgent in his concern, had opened his library to her, and at last she could read to her heart's content. In all, these past few weeks had been some of the most peaceable of her life. She had the sense of existing inside a fragile pause, a moment of grace.

Helene Wecker

#22. It occurred to him to say the viddui, the prayer before death. He struggled to remember it. Blessed are You, who has bestowed me with many blessings. May my death atone for all I have done ... and may I shelter in the shadow of Your wings in the World to Come.

Helene Wecker

#23. The air was a malodorous broth, and all labored to inhale it. The

Helene Wecker

#24. ...A mule kicked him in the head." She paused, and then said, "I always wondered if he provoked it. Deliberately."
Radzin snorted. "Suicide by mule?"
"Everyone knew that animal had a temper."
"There would be a dozen better ways to do it.

Helene Wecker

#25. Enormous. Cold. It stretched on forever, in every direction. If I hadn't know otherwise, I would've thought that the whole world was ocean.

Helene Wecker

#26. Snakes, he learned, dreamed in smells and vibrations, their tongues darting out to sample the air, their long bodies pressed close to the dirt.

Helene Wecker

#27. He'd never asked her whether she would prefer to have a master again, and now the thought of such a conversation made his throat tighten. In a sense it would be like asking someone whether they'd like to escape their present difficulties by killing themselves

Helene Wecker

#28. After that, the Jinni was rarely without tobacco and rolling papers. He appreciated the taste of the tobacco, and the warmth of the smoke in his body. But to the puzzlement of all who stopped him on the street to ask, he never carried matches.

Helene Wecker

#29. Most idealists lived in their own impossible worlds, sealed away from reality; Maryam, it seemed, effortlessly reached out from hers and drew others inside.

Helene Wecker

#30. What did people do when the ones they needed died? She lay curled on her bed, feeling as though part of her chest had been roughly scooped out, left raw and exposed.

Helene Wecker

#31. I felt stuck in a Sisyphean loop, writing the same press release over and over. Even more, I was tired of promoting other people's creations instead of creating something myself. I imagined myself on my deathbed, and I could hear my biggest regret: I never even tried to be a writer.

Helene Wecker

#32. Sayeed was a quiet man - not awkward, as Arbeely could be, but possessed of a calm and steady nature that complemented his wife's heartfelt vivacity.

Helene Wecker

#33. On a cloudless night, inky dark, with only a rind of a moon above, the Golem and the Jinni went walking together along the Prince Street rooftops.

Helene Wecker

#34. Faith is believing in something even without proof, because you know it in your heart to be true.

Helene Wecker

#35. A man might desire something for a moment, while a larger part of him rejects it. You'll need to learn to judge people by their actions, not their thoughts.

Helene Wecker

#36. The more he rode the trolleys and trains of New York, the more they seemed to form a giant, malevolent bellows, inhaling defenseless passengers from platforms and street corners and blowing them out again elsewhere.

Helene Wecker

#37. There you are," the man said. A small plate and a fork were in his hands. Irritated, the Jinni said, "Yes, here I am, enjoying a moment of solitude.

Helene Wecker

#38. What use is logic, when it takes you so far in the wrong direction?

Helene Wecker

#39. Now as then, he sensed the threads of his life scattering and rearranging before this new and overwhelming thing that had landed among them.

Helene Wecker

#40. Why take the time to convince me? If I disagree you could simply kill me, take Fadwa, and do whatever you like." Ibn Malik raised an eyebrow. "True. But I prefer reason and agreement. Allies are much more useful than bodies.

Helene Wecker