Quotes by Dorothy Gilman

the problems changed, but people were the same

Brainwashing, thought Mrs. Pollifax contemptuously, and suddenly realized that she was not afraid. She had endured other crises without losing her dignity--births, widowhood, illnesses--and she was experienced enough to know now that everything worthwhile took time and loneliness, perhaps even ones death as well.

I wasnt offering her pity, Mrs. Caswell said impatiently. Tragedies dont interest me, tragedies and heartbreaks are all alike, what matters is how a person meets them, how they survive them. Given the inevitability of losses and disappointments in life, thats where the challenge is and the uniqueness. I was offering her sympathy.

Once upon a time, [the guru] said, when God had finished making the world, he wanted to leave behind Him for man a piece of His own divinity, a spark of His essence, a promise to man of what he could become, with effort. He looked for a place to hide this Godhead because, he explained, what man could find too easily would never be valued by him.Then you must hide the Godhead on the highest mountain peak on earth, said one of His councilors.God shook His head. No, for man is an adventuresome creature and he will soon enough learn to climb the highest mountain peaks.Hide it then, O Great One, in the depths of the earth!I think not, said God, for man will one day discover that he can dig into the deepest parts of the earth.In the middle of the ocean then, Master?God shook His head. Ive given man a brain, you see, and one day hell learn to build ships and cross the mightiest oceans.Where then, Master? cried His councilors.God smiled. Ill hide it in the most inaccessible place of all, and the one place that man will never think to look for it. Ill hide it deep inside of man himself.

evil is, after all, only a deficiency of goodness.

Drama! said Mr. Hitchens.Robin Shrugged. Thats what terrorism is, basically--pure theater. Nothing in particular is ever accomplished by it, other than to focus attention on a small group of people who seize absolute power by threatening everything that holds civilization together.Absolute power, mused Mrs. Pollifax. Like monstrous children thumbing their noses at adults who live by codes and laws and scru

Its compassion that makes gods of us.

People need dreams, theres as much nourishment in em as food.