The human heart dares not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making.
Lillian SmithTo believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: It is the only way we can leave the future open.
Lillian SmithTo find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one's power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man's journey is about, I think.
Lillian SmithWhen you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die.
Lillian SmithMan, born of woman, has found it a hard thing to forgive her for giving him birth. The patriarchal protest against the ancient matriarch has borne strange fruit through the years.
Lillian SmithBelief in Some One's right to punish you is the fate of all children in Judaic-Christian culture. But nowhere else, perhaps, have the rich seed-beds of Western homes found such a growing climate for guilt as is produced in the South by the combination of a warm moist evangelism and racial segregation.
Lillian Smith