The Bridges of Madison County Quotes

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it’s been broken into a million pieces.”

“In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.”

“Once a person knows a kiss and a kind word, you can’t blame him for never wanting to live without them again.”

“The old dreams were good dreams; they didn’t work out but I’m glad I had them.”

“It’s clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty bumming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together.”

“I sometimes have the feeling you’ve been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you’ve dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about.”

“I don’t like feeling sorry for myself. That’s not who I am. And most of the time I don’t feel that way. Instead, I am grateful for having at least found you. We could have flashed by one another like two pieces of cosmic dust.

“We have both lost ourselves and created something else, something that exists only as an interlacing of the two of us. ”

“First you must have the images, then come the words.”

“Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another.”

“Analysis destroys wholes. Some things, magic things, are meant to stay whole. If you look at their pieces, they go away.”

“The heart never forgets, never gives up, the territory marked off for those who came before.”

“And in that moment, everything I knew to be true about myself up until then was gone. I was acting like another woman, yet I was more myself than ever before.”

“Complex things are easy to do. Simplicity’s the real challenge.”

“But, I am, after all, a man. And all the philosophic rationalizations I can conjure up do not keep me from wanting you, every day, every moment, the merciless wail of time, of time I can never spend with you, deep within my head. I love you, profoundly and completely. And I always will. The last cowboy, Robert.”

“So here I am walking around with another person inside of me. Though I think I put it better the day we parted when I said there is a third person we have created from the two of us. And I am stalked now by that other entity.”

“It’s clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty bumming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together.”

“God or the universe or whatever one chooses to label the great systems of balance and order does not recognize Earth-time. To the universe, four days is no different than four billion light years. I try to keep that in mind.”

“This is why I’m here on this planet, at this time, Francesca. Not to travel or make pictures, but to love you. I know that now. I have been falling from the rim of a great, high place, somewhere back in time, for many more years than I have lived in this life. And through all of those years, I have been falling toward you.”

“There are songs that come free from the blue-eyed grass, from the dust of a thousand country roads. This is one of them.”