Miriam Toews Quotes

When she looked at me she saw a child surrounded by flames, screaming. And that must have been hard for her.

Suffering, even though it may have happened a long time ago, is something that is passed from one generation to the next to the next, like flexibility or grace or dyslexia. My grandfather had big gree...

But love, like a mushroom high compared with the buzz from cheap weed, outlasts grief.

But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build with that, gentlemen.

By leaving, we are not necessarily disobeying the men according to the Bible, because we, the women, do not know exactly what is in the Bible, being unable to read it. Furthermore, the only reason why...

Conversing with children is a fine art.... An art form that demands large amounts of both honesty and misdirection. Or maybe discretion is a better word.

I heard Tash say: Nomi, you’re sad man. Get a grip. Walk away. What have I taught you? And I thought: You taught me that some people can leave and some can’t and those who can will always be infinitel...

I said. I’m a maid. I’m a dancer, she said. She stuck her elbows out and snapped her fingers. Well, I said. I get paid. Well, she said. I get applause. Well, I said. I get paid and with that money I r...

I stood there, like always, like forever it seemed, in the middle of the road waiting for something or someone to retrieve me, God or a parent or my husband or any of those things or people or ideas o...

I think Ray might have wanted a son. One night when I was seven or eight I announced to my family that I wanted to play hockey with the boys on Friday nights and Ray became just a little too eager. Ok...

I want her face to feel at home on an ancient coin, he said. I want her eyes to harm me.

Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life?

It was the first time that we had sort of articulated our major problem. She wanted to die and I wanted her to live and we were enemies who loved each other.

Listen, I said, I don't think you understand. I don't want to be presumptuous, but really how could you understand what another person's suicide means? My friend asked the waitress for more coffee. I...

None of us have ever asked the men for anything, Agata states. Not a single thing, not even for the salt to be passed, not even for a penny or a moment alone or to take the washing in or to open a cur...

She was a strange, unsettled planet that had had once sustained life. She was a language that I had thought I almost understood even though I couldn't speak it. She hadn't always been this way. She us...

The director said he's got a haunted soul and a natural sweetness.

There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.

Go into hard things quickly, eagerly, then retreat.

I find it curious that she hasn't been excommunicated. Are her small acts of rebellion a convenient outlet for Peters, a type of performance that satisfies the colonists' need to assert themselves, an...