Leif Enger

“We beat the drum slowly and played the fife lowly,and bitterly wept as we bore him along.For we all loved our comrade so brave, young and handsome, we all loved our comrade although he'd done wrong."The Cowboy's Lament”

“....her life would be a giddy crossword, working down from some clues and across from others.”

“How could we not believe the Lord would guide us? How could we not have faith? For the foundation had been laid in prayer and sorrow. Since that fearful night, Dad has responded with the almost impossible work of belief. He had burned with repentence as though his own hand had fired the gun. He had laid up prayer as if with a trowel.”

“SOON, he replied, which makes better sense under the rules of that country than ours. VERY SOON! he added, clasping my hands; then, unable to keep from laughing, he pushed off from the rock like a boy going for the first cold swim of spring; and the current got him. The stream was singing aloud, and I heard him singing with it until he dropped away over the edge.”

“When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of earth.”

“You can embark on new and steeper versions of your old sin, you know, and cry tears doing it that are genuine as any.”

“Whenever I didn't know what to write next, I put a swift river in front of his horse and sent the two of them across!”

“Why is it our failures only show us more clearly the people we are failing?”