“Life, he realized, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it’s in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile.”
“Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one.”
“There is in the darkness a unity, if you will, that cannot be achieved in any other environment, a blending of self with what the self perceives, an exquisite mystical experience.”
“You’d think solving mysteries would bring you closure, that closing the loop would comfort and quiet your mind. But it never does. The truth always disappoints.”
“I accepted the assignment because I was in the grip of the Everest mystique. In truth, I wanted to climb the mountain as badly as I’d ever wanted anything in my life.”
“Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
“Though he is powerfully drawn to the woman, he does not know how to fight for her or even that he is to fight for her. Rather, he he finds her mostly a mystery that he knows he cannot solve and so at a soul level he keeps his distance. And privately, secretly, he turns to the imitation.”
“I want to enjoy the mystery of not knowing you. Take in every exciting opportunity to learn you. Then, fall in love with the anticipation of one day truly understanding you, so that I can become totally obsessed with the beauty of doing all the things that make you smile.”
“Darwin’s theory of evolution is the last of the great nineteenth-century mystery religions. And as we speak it is now following Freudians and Marxism into the Nether regions, and I’m quite sure that Freud, Marx and Darwin are commiserating one with the other in the dark dungeon where discarded gods gather.”
“The evil genius of darkness presided at its birth, it came forth under the veil of mystery, its true features being carefully concealed, and every deceptive art has been and is practicing to have this spurious brat received as the genuine offspring of heaven-born liberty.”
“The traditional gender ideals of the strong-silent man who plays his cards close to his chest and the mysterious woman who disguises her feelings with coyness go so far as to make a virtue of being unavailable and secretive.”
“How could I doubt such a miracle? Isn’t it a miracle that the sun rises every day in the east and sets in the west? Isn’t there mystery in all of nature’s wonders? In the movements of the moon or the stillness of the stars?”
“So they waited, and grumbled, and watched the macaroni cheese congeal between them on the table. But MCC Berkshire never came for his supper. Not that night or any night.”
“Amos, a little speck of a living thing in the vast living universe, felt thoroughly akin to it all. Overwhelmed by the beauty and mystery of everything, he rolled over and over and right off the deck of his boat and into the sea.
“Sometimes you start thinking about death... and you might think death is a big mystery. It is hard to understand what death is... not only when you’re little, but when you’re big, too....”
“Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.
“Bert and Nan and younger brother and sister Freddie and Flossie and their parents are travelling home on the train, discussing the next school term, when a circus train in front of them hits trouble.”
″ ‘Dear little swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and women. There is no mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little swallow, and tell me what you see.’ ”
“So,” Jeffrey said, “where do you want me to look?” Elizabeth sighed. She was trying very hard not to yell. Jeffrey had come when she’d called, and he’d nodded while she’d described her early morning search along the stream and up the hill behind the house. But he had yet to look anywhere himself.”
He stood motionless before the stove, wearing a tattered dressing gown trimmed with satin, his thin white hair hanging over the collar. A single bare bulb in the ceiling behind him cast his weedy shadow on the wall.
“Now he moved to one side, and Cass gaped in astonishment...It was unlike anything he had ever seen. He instinctively drew back from the hole and something sharp bit deeply into his leg.”
“For the past week his mother, Alison, and he had been hunting them in earnest, setting out the traps around the apartment at night, shaking out the catch come morning, like a pair of trappers tending their line.”
He offers to take Annie to town. Before she can protest, Annie finds herself lifted on to his saddle and off they set on an intense, dream-like journey.
“But now the police have found Johnny’s bicycle abandoned along with others belongings he would never let out of his sight. They want to know what Chris and Johnny did together, where they went and why.”
“By now the force of the storm was spent and the wind had died, but the sea was still seething and angry. The waves rolled into the bay from Samson, gathering and rearing as they neared the shore before they curled over to hurl themselves into the hissing sand.”
“Two cars, an old red one and a non descript grey one, are smashed into each other at a right angle. We all stare at them in silence until Mr. Avery lets out an exasperated sigh. ‘I’d better make sure no one is hurt.”
“Well, when I picked up the top plate, I came over all queer. A sort of tingling in my hands, and everything went muzzy -you know how at the pictures goes out of focus on the screen and then comes back? It was like that: only when I could see straight again, it was different somehow. Something had changed.”
“Alison and Roger were playing with three flimsy cut out paper models of birds. One was on the candlestick and the other two were side by side on a chair back. The play Gwyn had brought from the loft was next to Alison’s pillow and covered with scraps of paper.”
“It is about 5 children who would like to find the truth about the person who burn the cottage. I enjoyed to read this book and want to be one of the find-outers too.”
“The people around you are generally mysterious. You are never quite sure about their intentions. They present an appearance that is often deceptive—their manipulative actions don’t match their lofty words or promises. All of this can prove confusing. Seeing people as they are, instead of what you think they should be, would mean having a greater sense of their motives.”
“A terrible monster pulled itself over the top of the cart and spat at Johnny. It was white, but with bits of brown and black as well. It was scrawny. It had three and a half legs but only one ear.”
“I think he would have stayed with her forever, trying to figure out the mystery. He was a puzzle solver, the kind of person who likes theorems, theories. X always had to equal something. It couldn’t just be X.”
″...he had to admit to himself that as time passed, his memories of that night grew less vivid, and he could no longer recall his mystery woman’s voice with perfect clarity. Besides, Sophie’s accent, while exceptionally refined for a housemaid, was not as uppercrust as hers had been.′
“There is a reality in blessing, which I take baptism to be, primarily. It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.”