Elina Resos > Elina's Quotes

“What was wrong with these American students? Didn’t they know I was the teacher and they had to do as I said? I learned quickly that my authority meant little, if anything, to them. I was not the all-powerful and feared mwalimu (teacher) of Africa.”
― Maria Nhambu, America's Daughter

“Even some of Bill and Hillary’s harshest political critics admire their success as parents.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives

“Not even her lover’s embrace could penetrate the chill that founds its way deep into her soul.”
― Marie Montine, Arising Son: Part One

“I caught a hint of Lachlan’s unique scent again and drew him in deeply, imagining that was how hot sex smelled.”
― J.J. Sorel, A Taste of Peace

“The lighthouse does not qualify your distress; it does not ask if you are black or white, wealthy or less so, Democrat or Republican. It does not concern itself with where you stand on a particular issue. Nor does it blame you for being in the middle of the storm. Rather, its priority is how it might guide you toward safe harbor.”
― Steve Pemberton, The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World

“He has trifled with the sacred memory of my husband," thought the Professor's widow. "On my life and honor, I will make him pay for it.”
― Wilkie Collins

“... the Iroquois take dreams very seriously. They see them as the secret wishes of the soul--the heart's desire, so to speak. Not all dreams, maybe, but the important ones. [p.254]”
― Kim Edwards, The Lake of Dreams

“Sissy had two great failings. She was a great lover and a great mother. She had so much of tenderness in her, so much of wanting to give of herself to whoever needed what she had, whether it was her money, her time, the clothes off her back, her pity, her understanding, her friendship or her companionship and love. She was mother to everything that came her way. She loved men, yes. She loved women too, and old people and especially children. How she loved children! She loved loved the down-and-outers. She wanted to make everybody happy. She had tried to seduce the good priest who heard her infrequent confessions because she felt sorry for him. She thought he was missing the greatest joy on earth by being committed to a life of celibacy.
She loved all the scratching curs on the street and wept for the gaunt scavenging cats who slunk around Brooklyn corners with their sides swollen looking for a hole in which they might bring forth their young. She loved the sooty sparrows and thought that the very grass that grew in the lots was beautiful. She picked bouquets of white clover in the lots believing they were the most beautiful flowers God ever made...Yes, she listened to everybody's troubles but no one listened to hers. But that was right because Sissy was a giver and never a taker.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn