Michael Flynn Quotes

“Any fool can hope when success lies plainly in view. It wants genuine strength to hope when matters are hopeless.”

— Michael Flynn

“The soul is the form of the body, but not as the shape of a statue is formatio et terminatio materiae, for form does not exist apart from material. There is no whiteness without a white object. But the soul is not a form in this simple sense, and in particular, is not the shape of the material it informs. Therefore, the shape of a being does not affect the being's soul, for then something lower would inform something higher, which is impossible.”

— Michael Flynn

“For what purpose have you prayed?"
"For thanks. If I must die, at least I have lived. If my companions have perished, at least I have known them. If the world is cruel, at least I have tasted kindness. I had to cross to the far side of the sky to taste it but, as you say, the world is full of miracles.”

— Michael Flynn

“Jesus said the weeds would grow with the wheat until the Judgement," Dietrich answered, "so one finds both good men and bad in the Church. By our fruits we will be known, not by what name we have called ourselves. I have come to believe that there is more grace in becoming wheat than there is in pulling weeds.”

— Michael Flynn

“But what is hope? When all else is lost, it is the one thing you may keep.”

— Michael Flynn

“Peace needs the consent of all, while one alone may raise a war.”

— Michael Flynn

“The body's ills are the least of ills, for they end only in death, which is but a little thing. But if the spirit dies, then all is lost.”

— Michael Flynn

“When princes flee battle, and knights turn free-lance, and barons rob pilgrims, what value has honor?"
"Why, all the more, seeing how rare it has become.”

— Michael Flynn

“She looked in the mirror and her hopes fell. "Our friend is behind us again and he's coming up fast. Closing the distance."
Then he knows we're on to him."
Christ! He's got a gun, Red! He's stuck his arm out the window."
Don't worry," Red told her. "Shooting a pistol left-handed from a moving car at another moving car at sixty miles an hour at this distance? Hell, he'd be lucky to hit that mountain."
There was a sharp crack and the rear window disintegrated into flashing shards. Something buzzed in the air between them and smashed into the tapedeck. Fee howled and ducked into his console.
Unless," Red continued thoughtfully, "that's Orvid Crayle behind us. He's very good.”

— Michael Flynn

Everything in the universe is older than it seems. Blame Einstein for that. We see what a thing was when the light left it, and that was long ago. Nothing in the night sky is contemporary, not to us, not to one another. Ancient stars exploded into ruin before their sparkle ever caught our eyes; those glimpsed in glowing "nurseries" were crones before we witnessed their birth. Everything we marvel at is already gone.
Yet, light rays go out forever, so that everything grown old and decayed retains somewhere the appearance of its youth. The universe is full of ghosts.
But images are light, and light is energy, and energy is matter; and matter is real. So image and reality are the same thing, after all. Blame Einstein for that, as well.

— Michael Flynn

“Hans clacked his side-lips. "Do you have the sentence in your head that tomorrow's procession will halt this pest of yours, that it will bar the small-lives from the High Woods?"
"If it is as you say, no. No more than prayer can stay a charging horse. But that is not why we pray. God is no cheap juggler as to play for a pfennig.”

— Michael Flynn

“On the hill opposite, Joachim tolled the midday bell, announcing lunch to the workers in the fields. Klaus listened a moment, then said, "I thought it would be a bleaker scene."
Dietrich turned to him, "What would be?"
"This day. I thought it would be marked by terrible signs - lowering clouds, ominous winds, a crack of thunder. Twilight. Yet, it is so ordinary a morning that I grow frightened."
"Only now frightened."
"Ja. Portents would mean a Divine Mover, however mysterious His moves; and the wrath of an angry God may be turned away by prayer and penance. But it simply happened. Everard grew sick and fell down. There were no signs; so it may be a natural thing, as you have always said. And against nature, we have no recourse.”

— Michael Flynn

Ockham snorted. I am no nominalist. The problem with teaching the Modern Way is that lesser scholars, excited by the novelty, seldom bother to master my insights. There are lips on which I heartily wish my name had never rested. I tell you, Dietl, a man becomes a heretic less for what he writes than for what others believe he has written.

— Michael Flynn

“One recalls the literary writer who, after grasping a story of a Mars voyage as a metaphor for isolation and the precariousness of relationships, realized that at a deeper, more subtle level it might even be a story about an actual trip to Mars!”

— Michael Flynn

“Dirac found that the ratio of the electric force to the gravitational force of an electron-proton pair is roughly equal to the ratio of the age of the universe to the time it takes light to traverse an atom.”

— Michael Flynn

“You would rather think about the good than do it.”

— Michael Flynn

“Tom was deep in MEGO by then. My Eyes Glaze Over. Normally, he was fascinated by matters statistic, but look up "fascination" someday.”

— Michael Flynn

“I know what I have said, but not what you have heard.”

— Michael Flynn

“Each man sees what his own experience has taught him.”

— Michael Flynn

“One cannot love a world. It is too large. But a fleck of ground so far as his eye can see, one may hold precious above all.”

— Michael Flynn

When your words come out of your mouth and back into your ear, your brain gives them a second rinse, and cleans them up a little better. All Tom knew was that when he tried to explain things to Sharon, his own thinking clarified.

— Michael Flynn

“One finds both good men and bad in the Church. By our fruits we will be known, not by what name we have called ourselves. I have come to believe that there is more grace in becoming wheat then there is in pulling up weeds.”

— Michael Flynn

“Of this his head was convinced, however doubtful his bowels.”

— Michael Flynn

“The sentries might not be the most alert, but they might have marked a skulking, five-shoe tall grasshopper.”

— Michael Flynn

“While July read, Tom listened with his eyes closed. This was a trick of his whenever he wanted to concentrate on what he heard. By shutting down one information flow he thought to heighten his attention on the other. However, he was never known to put his fingers in his ears when he wanted to see something clearly.”

— Michael Flynn

“That is the way of it among heretics. They start questioning one doctrine and end up questioning everything. No wonder they used to burn them.”

— Michael Flynn

“The Luna-Ganymede Race went down in history, and the magnetic sail went down to the fusion thruster. Terranova should never have taken the bet, but it was a matter of pride - and prive loves loss above surrender.”

— Michael Flynn

Bad luck was a fact of life and one dealt with it or not.
Good luck, on the other hand, was something one created.

— Michael Flynn

Niederhochwald. She seemed determined to work her way through the

— Michael Flynn

Exercising during the cold and flu season will help people stay in shape, and most likely fight off colds or reduce the number of days a person is ill. The cold season should not be an excuse for the average person to refrain from exercising - working out at the gym, a brisk walk in the park or a jog through the neighborhood.

— Michael Flynn

“Could distance in one direction differ from distance in another? It's always faster coming home.”

— Michael Flynn