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N.D. Wilson Quotes | Quotes said by N.D. Wilson

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #1

    A man's words reveal, first, the man. The words are not the man, and yet they reveal him faithfully and are to be identified with him. Out of the abundance of the heart, the man speaks. The foundational nature of all language is therefore metaphorical because every word a man speaks reveals himself—just as God reveals Himself through the Word. Every word spoken ultimately reveals the speaker.


  • N.D. Wilson Quote #2

    Affectation is really a question of heart motive. Growing into a persona is an essential part of maturing. Anything you might choose to do is going to contribute to one persona or another. People will only call attention to it if it is markedly different from the course you were apparently on before.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #3

    Do you dislike your role in the story, your place in the shadow? What complaints do you have that the hobbits could not have heaved at Tolkien? You have been born into a narrative, you have been given freedom. Act, and act well until you reach your final scene.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #4

    Frank, I ran into Gladys and Billy at the store yesterday. Do you know what he said to me?
    The girls went very quiet. Frank didn't look up.
    Hello? he asked, and kept rubbing Henry's knife.
    Dotty hit him with her rag. He said that. And so did she. But the important part was when he said, 'Frank ever get that door open?' Do you know what I said? What I said was--Are you ready for this? I said, 'No,'
    Ah Frank said. He lifted Henry's knife up to his mouth and dabbed the blade with his tongue. That's my honest wife. I appreciate you lookin' out for my dignity.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #5

    Glory is sacrifice, glory is exhaustion, glory is having nothing left to give.
    Almost.
    It is death by living.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #6

    God's big enough that small doesn't matter.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #7

    He was pierced and scourged and mocked. He was cursed and raised up on a tree, but He was in that ancient pose of victory.
    An old man on a hill, a blind man between two pillars, the God Man on a cross.
    Glory is sacrifice, glory is exhaustion, glory is having nothing left to give.
    Almost.
    It is death by living.
    The earth shook. The roof came down. The world changed. The armies fled.
    That Moses kept his hands up.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #8

    Henry flopped onto his bed, and his steam leaked slowly out. He began telling himself a story in his head. It was about how just and kind and understanding he was. It was about right he had been, how necessary his tone and word choice. It was about a girl who just didn't understand, who was completely ignorant. Then, for some reason, the narrator of the story included an incident in which Henry ha pushed an envelope into a strange place just to see what would happen. It hadn't even been an accident. The incident did not fit with the rest of the story, so Henry tried to ignored it. He couldn't ignore it, so he tried to explain it. Completely different things. The post office was obviously not dangerous. It was yellow. I just wanted to see what the mailman would do. The flashlight was stupid. I didn't shine a flashlight into the post office. She didn't even act sorry. I would have acted sorry. I always act sorry when people get upset. She didn't even care that I probably saved her life. She didn't know. She was unconscious. Oh, shut up.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #9

    Henry successfully kept his mind on the game, which might seem strange for a boy who slept beside a wall of magic. But baseball was as magical to him as a green, mossy mountain covered in ancient trees. What's more, baseball was a magic he could run around in and laugh about. While the magic of the cupboards was not necessarily good, the smell of leather mixed with dusty sweat and spitting and running through sparse grass after a small ball couldn't be anything else.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #10

    I listened to you tell me, tell everyone, and all the world, “Praise the Lord.” You were broken, but not by bullets and bombs. You were broken by grace.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #11

    I love it as it is, because it is a story, and it isn't stuck in one place.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #12

    I love it with all of its villains and pretty liars and self-righteous pompers

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #13

    I've watched goldfish make babies, and ants execute earwigs. I've seen a fly deliver live young while having its head eaten by a mantis. And I had a golden retriever behave like one.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #14

    It has thick skin, and all the most important thinkers have become part of it.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #15

    Lay your life down. Your heartbeats cannot be hoarded. Your reservoir of breaths is draining away. You have hands, blister them while you can. You have bones, make them strain-they can carry nothing in the grave. You have lungs, let them spill with laughter. With an average life expectancy of 78.2 years in the US (subtracting eight hours a day for sleep), I have around 250,00 conscious hours remaining to me in which I could be smiling or scowling, rejoicing in my life, in this race, in this story, or moaning and complaining about my troubles. I can be giving my fingers, my back, my mind, my words, my breaths, to my wife and my children and my neighbors, or I can grasp after the vapor and the vanity for myself, dragging my feet, afraid to die and therefore afraid to live. And, like Adam, I will still die in the end.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #16

    Lewis had said that there is no creativity de novo in us—that we are all sub-creators pirating and rearranging portions of reality. I agreed. But it was only an idea. And then it took on flesh. I began to see the world more like a cook than a writer. There were boundless ingredients out there, combinations waiting to be discovered and simmered and served. There were truths and stories and characters and quirks that could clash badly, and some that could marry and birth sequels. I began to feel a lot more comfortable. It wasn't all on me to create. It was on me to find. To catch. To arrange.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #17

    Life is a story. Why do we die? Because we live. Why do we live? Because our Maker opened His mouth and began to tell a story.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #18

    Rule 1 for Mortals: Love the Lord your God (with every bit of you).
    Rule 2 for Mortals: Love your neighbor as yourself.
    Tip 1 for Mortals: Ask God to call your bluffs.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #19

    snow is overused.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #20

    Solomon smiles with us

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #21

    Sometimes standing against evil is more important than defeating it. The greatest heroes stand because it is right to do so, not because they believe they will walk away with their lives. Such selfless courage is a victory in itself.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #22

    Stories are like catechisms, but they're catechisms for your impulses, they're catechisms with flesh on.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #23

    The fall of man did not introduce evil; it placed us on the wrong side of it, under its rule, needing rescue.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #24

    Tom shut his eyes again, because when his eyes were shut, he could tell himself that there was light.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #25

    Truth: We are the present. We are now. We are the razor's edge of history. The future flies at us and from that dark blur we shape the past. And the past is forever.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #26

    We are narrative creatures, and we need narrative nourishment—narrative catechisms.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #27

    Welcome to His poem. His play. His novel. Skip the bowls of fruit and statues. Let the page flick your thumbs. This is His spoken word.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #28

    What is the world? What is it for?
    It is an art. It is the best of all possible art, a finite picture of the infinite. Assess it like prose, like poetry, like architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, delta blues, opera, tragedy, comedy, romance, epic. Assess it like you would a Faberge egg, like a gunfight, like a musical, like a snowflake, like a death, a birth, a triumph, a love story, a tornado, a smile, a heartbreak, a sweater, a hunger pain, a desire, a fufillment, a desert, a waterfall, a song, a race, a frog, a play, a song, a marriage, a consummation, a thirst quenched.
    Assess it like that. And when you're done, find an ant and have him assess the cathedrals of Europe.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #29

    When you depart from standard usage, it should be deliberate and not an accidental lapse. Like a poet who breaks the rules of poetry for creative effect, this only works when you know and respect the rule you are breaking. If you have never heard of the rules you are breaking, you have no right to do so, and you are likely to come off like a buffoon or a barbarian. Breaking rules, using slang and archaic language can be effective, but it is just as likely to give you an audience busy with wincing.

  • N.D. Wilson Quote #30

    Your father died for me, and dying with you would be an honor, though not as great as dying to save you.

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