tenderness Quotes

“Later the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food providers and fire providers. ”

“Without suffering, there’s no happiness. So we shouldn’t discriminate against the mud. We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness.”

“A man without ever the least appearance of anger, or any other passion; able at the same time most exactly to observe the Stoic Apathia, or unpassionateness, and yet to be most tender-hearted: ever of good credit; and yet almost without any noise, or rumour: very learned, and yet making little show.”

“Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove.”

“There was something tender and gentle about our love, something a little shy, that was like early spring.”

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”

“I turned and caught the briefest of moments in Maxon’s life. His mother, the beautiful Queen Amberly, pushed some stray hairs back into place.”

“There’s a Korean word my grandma taught me. It’s called jung. It’s the connection between two people that can’t be severed, even when love turns to hate. You still have those old feelings for them; you can’t ever completely shake them loose of you; you will always have tenderness in your heart for them.”

“These people were so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.”

Funny, tough-minded and tender, this is the story of Matilda and her two sisters growing up in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1950s. Their father is mentally unstable and largely absent, their mother is possibly in the thrall of his brother, and a headline-making Russian spy defection is taking place next door.

Tender and lyrical prose, gentle and almost achingly poignant moments and a golden daffy-down-dilly air pervading the stories: make sure you grab your tissue box before reading the Kingdom of Silk series.

“You are juicy, Yubbazubbies, you are tender, never tough, you are appetizing morsels, I can never get enough.”

″‘Gingko is soft and tender, like the skin of a baby. One taste and you will live forever,’ Shang said, ‘and the nuts grow on the top of the tree just outside the door.‘”

“For an instant she remembered her mother’s dark dewdrop eyes, as she said, ‘You don’t know how powerful love can be,’ and she thought how strange it was that love had made her both callous and tender.”

“Ranchers are midwives, hunters, nurturers, providers, and conservationists all at once. What we’ve interpreted as toughness—weathered skin, calloused hands, a squint in the eye and a growl in the voice—only masks the tenderness inside.”

“Tenderness flows down from the moon and up from the earth.”