Charles Martin

“the mountain between us is one i cannot climb .”

“He traced a line in the dirt with his toe. ‘This is a battlefield. Has been since Cain killed Abel. And don’t let it get complicated. Gray it ain’t. It’s black and white. Good versus evil. You might as well choose sides right now.”

“I think when two people really love each other...way down deep...like where the souls sleep and dreams happen, where pain can't live 'cause there's nothing for it to feed on...then a wedding is a bleeding together of those two souls. Like two rivers running together. All that water becoming the same water. Mine did that.”

“Never make it without the compass. In the trees, I'd lose all sense of perspective. Direction. Maybe life is like that.”

“Termite, you're young, and I'm not sure if you're going to understand what I'm about to say, but here's the nugget: Without the heart, nothing else matters. She could be the Goddess of Love, you could have all the mind-blowing sex you could physically handle, but when the shooting is over, and you're starting to think about getting a bite to eat, smoking a cigarette, or what you do with her now, you're just lying in bed with a woman who means little more to you than the remote control for your TV. Love is not tool; neither is a woman's heart. What I'm talking about, you won't find in that magazine.""How would you know? You just said you've only loved one woman. I think you need to test-drive a few cars before you buy one.""You can buy that lie if you want, but if you're working for a bank, you don't study the counterfeit to know the real thing. You study the real thing to know the counterfeit."Reese talking to Termite, pg. 109-110”

“If anything in the universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart"...It derives no benefit from the blood it pumps making it the most unselfish of organs...it is also the most courageous and faithful." (124, 126) - Reese”

“From out of your heart, you speak."-Emma, When Crickets Cry”

“I have come to kno one thing without ay shadow of doubt: if anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart”

“O amor faz destas coisas. Nomeia o inominável e confere voz ao silêncio”

“The stone had been rolled away... That fact alone demands a response.”

“What I'm trying to say, and not doing a very good job at, is...will you ride the river with me?”

“You rescued me when I thought nobody would. When I thought I wasn't worth the effort. You gave me everything and asked for nothing.' She pressed her face to mine.'If this is love on the other side of the rescue, then I want to live it. With you. But,'She shook her head.'But if you give you to me, then'-she placed her palm flat across my chest-'come heavy”

“She cried easily. Evidence that she felt much, and most often for other people. A rare and beauty filled gift.”

“What do you want in a woman, in life?' I thought a moment...'The Rangers...we began to describe one another in a few simple words: El es muy bueno para cabalgar el rio. Meaning, 'He'll do to ride the river with.' In Texan, it means, 'I'd trust him with my life.' I scratched my head. 'I want someone to ride the river with.”

“He picked up one of Lorna's roses and set it in my lap. "Here." I picked it up and smelled it. He poked me in the shoulder. "See what I mean? Thorns don't stop you from sniffing. Or putting them in a vase on the kitchen table. You work around them.... Cause the rose is worth it... Think what you'd miss.”

“If my life were still a movie, this is the part that would end up on the cutting room floor. We were all just fill-ins for a long-running soap opera. The actors changed, but the story seldom did. Certainly not the action.”

“Well...letting the cat out of the bag is a lot easier than putting it in.”

“It's so dry the trees are bribing the dogs.”

“Gonna be a real frog-strangling turd-floater.”

“And they ate supper before they said grace...Oh, um...she moved into his house, stayed awhile, and then they got married.”

“Never judge someone by their relatives.”

“He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow.”

“Ashley tried to speak. Tried again and still could not find the words. Finally she wiped her eyes, pressed her ear to my chest, and whispered. 'Give me all the pieces.”

“I'm not leaving you. Not going it alone. Not looking at the memory of you everytime I close my eyes.”

“When you laugh...I want to smile. And when you cry...' She brushed the tears off of my face. 'I want the tears to roll down my cheeks.' She shook her head once, whispering, 'I'm not leaving you...won't.”

“Identity does not grow out of action until it has taken root in belonging.”

“You can put your boots in the oven, but that doesn't make them biscuits. - You can say whatever you want about something, but that doesn't change what it is.”

“Sometimes good judgement comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgement.”

“...forgive your enemies...it messes with their heads.”

“People marvel at the genius of Mozart because he supposedly wrote "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" at the age of three and composed his first symphony at the age of twelve. And yes, of course he was a genius, but another way to look at it is that he just discovered early what it was God made him to do. That's all. For some reason, God gave him a little extra, or a little something different, and Mozart found out what that was and then got a head start on using it. Of course he was brilliant, but that's not the point. The point is he knew, and then he got to work.”

“O único monstro com que precisas de te preocupar na vida é aquele que olha para ti todas as manhãs, ao espelho. Doma-o, torna-te amigo dele e conseguirás lidar com tudo na vida.”

“When I find myself wondering what hell must be like, I'm reminded of the terminals in Atlanta. Thousands of people, most of whom don't know one another, crammed into a limited space, all in a hurry and trying desperately to get out.”

“To whom much is given, much is expected.”

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but if you want to hurt someone...way down deep, use words.”

“Forgiveness is a tough thing. Both in the offering…and the accepting.”

“love is worth doing. No matter how much it hurts.”

“Once a heart breaks…it doesn’t just grow back. It’s not a lizard’s tail. It’s more like a huge stained glass that shattered into a million pieces, and it’s not going back together. Least not the way it was. You can mush it all into one piece, but that doesn’t make it a window. That makes it a pile of broken colored glass. Shattered hearts don’t mend and they don’t heal. They just don’t work that way.”

“this…living with a broken heart is living half dead, and that doesn’t mean you’re half alive. It means you’re half dead. And…that’s no way to live.”

“I’m one half of a two-piece puzzle.”

“loving somebody gets better the more you do it.”

“...but maybe life is like that - you never know when something that's been hidden is going to rise up and bite you, or glow with a golden hue.”

“Scientists say that these things evolved this way over millions of years." He shook his head. "That's a bunch of bunk. I don't think an animal can just all-of-a-sudden decide it wants to make light grow out it's butt. What kind of nonsense is that? Animals don't make light." He pointed to the stars. "God does that. I don't know why or how, but I'm pretty sure it's not chance. It's not some haphazard thing he does in his spare time."He looked at me, and his expression changed from one of wonder to seriousness, to absolute convicton. "Chase, I don't believe in chance." He held up the jar. "This is not chance, neither are the stars."....."And neither are you. So, if your mind is telling you that God slipped up and might have made one giant mistake when it comes to you, you remember the firefly's butt.”

“I had this dream that my life was a rolling canvas. Everyday it rolled off the sheet, bleached white, into the beach of my life. Come sunup, I'd begin to paint it with my thoughts and actions. My breathing, my living, and my dying. Some days the pictures pleased me, maybe pleased others, pleased God himself, but some days, some months, even some years, they didn't, and I didn't ever want to look at them again. But the thing is this . . . every day, no matter what I'd painted the day before, I got a new canvas, washed white. 'Cause each night the tide rolled in, scrubbed it clean, and receded, taking it's stains with it. And my dreams . . . I just stood on the beach and watched all that stuff wash out to sea.- Nothing more than ripples in the water. No canvas is ever stained clean through. Not one.”

“A change in paperwork [birth certificate] can't erase words stamped on the human heart.”

“You take the bad with the good, Rise up through it. Live in the mist of it. It's the bad that lets you know ho good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't any good. There is, and lots of it, too. ”

“Time to paint your but white and run with antelope-in English- Stop arguing and do as your told.”

“She smiled, tilted her head, and . . . have you ever seen video of melting glaciers where huge chunks, the size of skyscrapers, break off and crash into the sea? If hearts could do that, then when her hair slid from behind her ear and down her eyes, and the right side of her lip turned up, I heard my heart crack down the middle.”

“Love has its own communication. It's the language of the heart, while it has never been transcribed, has no alphabet, and can't be heard or spoken by voice, it is used by every human on the planet. It is written on our souls, scripted by the finger of God, and we can hear, understand, and speak it with perfection long before we open our eyes for the first time.”

“The river never changes. it may alter it's path a bit, but it never changes. It's us who change. We come back here and we're are different. Not it." Form can't be extracted from the essence like some broth reduction."This river's taught me a good bit. Probably why I don't leave here. It winds, weaves, snakes around. Rarely goes the same twice. But, in the end, it always ends up in the same place and the gift is never the same." ..."it's the journey that matters.”

“We're all fallen people in a fallen world.Where does a man find healing amid so many broken places? How does he find love in the ruins and vine-wrapped shattered pieces of his own soul?Because love's springing up through the rocks.”