Quotes by Joseph Bell

“The image that comes to mind is a boxing ring. There are times when...you just want that bell to ring, but you're the one who's losing. The one who's winning doesn't have that feeling. Do you have the energy and strength to face life? Life can ask more of you than you are willing to give. And then you say, 'Life is not something that should have been. I'm not going to play the game. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to call "out".'There are three positions possible. One is the up-to-it, and facing the game and playing through. The second is saying, Absolutely not. I don't want to stay in this dogfight. That's the absolute out. The third position is the one that says, This is mixed of good and evil. I'm on the side of the good. I accept the world with corrections. And may [the world] be the way I like it. And it's good for me and my friends. There are only the three positions.””

“People arrived in town all the time. It wasn’t that distant from other places, and it was along a major thoroughfare. There was a Taco Bell where people could pee. There was a gas station where people could pee. There were all sorts of things.””

“As they stepped outside into the sandy dusk, the bell on the door jingled faintly in Jackie’s mind like a favorite song to which she could no longer quite remember the tune.””

“Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive and wild - and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country.””

“Every life has peaks and shadows and times when it seems that the birds don’t sing and bells don’t ring. Yet in spite of discouragement and adversity, those who are happiest seem to have a way of learning from difficult times, becoming stronger, wiser, and happier as a result.””

“The fully human person is in deep and meaningful contact with the world outside of him. He not only listens to himself, but to the voices of the world. The breadth of his own individual experience is infinitely multiplied through a sensitive empathy with others. He suffers with the suffering, rejoices with the joyful. He is born again in every springtime, feels the impact of the great mysteries of life: birth, growth, love, suffering, death. His heart skips along with the 'young lovers', and he knows something of the exhilaration that is in them. He also knows the ghetto's philosophy of despair, the loneliness of suffering without relief, and the bell never tolls without tolling in some strange way for him.””

“From afar at the end of Tsar Peter Straat, issued in the frosty air the tinkle of bells of the horse tramcars, appearing and disappearing in the opening between the buildings, like little toy carriages harnessed with toy horses and played with by people that appeared no bigger than children.””

“But this attitude could not persist. Under the supervision of “oldtimers” like Joseph Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Braxton Bragg, and Thomas Jackson, complaisant officers were gradually weeded out and West Point ideas of discipline were adopted in the Southern armies. Before the campaigns of 1862 Johnny Reb was for the most part a changed man. He had shed most of his surplus equipment, and, of much greater importance, he had abandoned the idea that military life was “all fun and frolic.” In short, the volunteer had become a soldier.””

“There was a Taco Bell where people could pee. There was a gas station where people could pee. There were all sorts of things. The mayor was proud of his town.””

“'What are you making?' he'd asked her one time out of curiosity that could no longer be borne in silence.   'You'll see,' she replied mysteriously.   He consulted his father. 'Pa, what's she making?'   'Mind your own business.'   'I was only asking.'   'Don't ask personal questions.'   'Rose, what's she knitting?' he asked his sister.   'Wool,' Belle answered.   'Belle, I know that. But what's she doing with it?'   'Knitting,' said Esther.   ””

“One day, Joseph, all the false trappings will fall away, and only the perfection of God will remain. If we are wise, if we listen to Him alone, we can glimpse that perfection here on Earth.””

“Clarity is, indeed, all the more necessary when one essays to lead the reader farther from the beaten path and into wilder territory- Joseph Liouville””

“Carl Joseph turned red. It seemed as if his father, the rain, the clocks, people, time, and nature itself were determined to make his trip even more difficult. On those afternoons when he had managed to visit the living Frau Slama, he had also listened for the golden stroke of the bells, as impatient as today, but intent on not finding the sergeant in. Those afternoons seemed buried behind many decades. Death overshadowed and concealed them, Death””

“The steam gear clattered, stopped, clattered again; and the helmsman’s eyeballs seemed to project out of a hungry face as if the compass card behind the binnacle glass had been meat. God knows how long he had been left there to steer, as if forgotten by all his shipmates. The bells had not been struck; there had been no reliefs; the ship’s routine had gone down wind; but he was trying to keep her head north-north-east. The rudder might have been gone for all he knew, the fires out, the engines broken down, the ship ready to roll over like a corpse. He was anxious not to get muddled and lose control of her head, because the compass-card swung far both ways, wriggling on the pivot, and sometimes seemed to whirl right round. He suffered from mental stress. He was horribly afraid, also, of the wheelhouse going. Mountains of water kept on tumbling against it. When the ship took one of her desperate dives the corners of his lips twitched.””