Best 25 quotes of Edward Fahey on MyQuotes

After finishing 1st draft of a novel, I have the characters, dialogue, scenes, and a plotline. I used to think this meant I knew where the story was going, and what the book was about. I have learned over the years, this ain’t so. As I work through its 2nd draft, characters start to nudge each other. The story itself takes its first soft and shallow breath, and one could imagine he hears a little bit of a heartbeat. Passions deepen, and emotional threads start to weave through what had earlier just been little more than a sequence of events. On the 3rd run through, the characters stand tall. Some break free of my earlier concepts of what they were all about, what they wanted, how they related to each other, and where they were going. From then on, THEY set the pace, and I do my best to honor them in becoming what THEY choose to be. From then on, my friends; we have a story! By the end of the 3rd draft, I have enough of an idea of where the characters are going, and how their passions empower the story, or tear it apart, that I can start cutting away, and cutting away, anything that isn’t that. Until we reach the point where there is not a single word left anywhere in the book, that isn’t a vital, dynamic, organic contributor to the living whole.

Ancient philosophers and spiritual teachers were explorers. They wanted us to be as well. They thought we should understand this physical world, but not get stuck here. For thousands of years we have shared their insights, over-analyzed and repeated their words; quoting and re-translating until all meaning has been lost. These great minds, great souls, great beings sought to be jumping off points, not merely the originators of emptied out and desiccated clichés. They wanted to be doorways, not doorstops.

As so often happens in my strange writing process, after weeks of distraction; of not thinking about the book at all; yesterday I started writing before the sun was up, or coffee was made. Whipped out a whole chapter of probably six or seven separate scenes in less than two hours. Now today, the whole story has slipped into a deeper level of knowing and connections than has (as far as I know, anyway) ever really been written about before. This is much as my experience was with Ailana, when I kept slipping into deeper and deeper gears. Bringing forth insights I myself had never learned or suspected.

As unprincipled billionaires bought up all forms of media so as to ensure their grip on the gullible; as popular radio mouths grew wealthy spewing hatred; ordinary citizens learned to look elsewhere for truth. Weaker spirits followed along as small-minded preachers told them to hate gays. They let news commentators tell them to hate Muslims; let their Imams tell them to hate Westerners. It was really all the same. That which stirs the heart may stir it from any direction; for or against any cause. High or low; meaningless or vital; the heart flits from passion to passion, and the weaker man follows aimlessly. - From "The Soul Hides in Shadows

Broken hearts show us we’ve grown out of one stage, by ripping us wide open for the next. We’re forced to choose what we do with all that pain: turn it against ourselves, aim it at someone else, or tap all that power and reach higher.

Cages of women. Women and girls of all ages. Lining downtown streets behind The Great Barrier Walls. Passersby prodding at them with canes, sticks, and whatever they could find. Spitting on them through the bars, as law and culture required. “Cages of women who had disobeyed their husbands, or sons, their preachers, or some other males in their lives. One or two of them had been foolish and self-destructive enough to have reported a rapist. “A couple of them had befriended someone higher or lower than their stations, or maybe entertained a foreigner from outside the community, or allowed someone of a lesser race into their homes. A few may have done absolutely nothing wrong but for being reported by a neighbor with a grudge. “For the most part they had disobeyed or disrespected males. “Watching from behind tinted and bullet-proof windows at the rear of his immaculate stretch limo, the Lord High Chancellor of PolitiChurch, grinned the sadistic grin of unholy conquest. A dark satisfaction only a deeply tarred soul could enjoy.” … … “Caged women and young girls at major street corners in even the worst weather. Every one of them his to do with, or dispose of, as he would. “In this world – in His world – He was God.” - From “The Soul Hides in Shadows” “It is the year 2037. What is now referred to as ‘The Great Electoral Madness of ’16’ had freed the darkest ignorance, isolationism, misogyny, and racial hatreds in the weakest among us, setting loose the cultural, economic, and moral destruction of America. In the once powerful United States, paranoia, distrust, and hatred now rage at epidemic levels.

[Charlie is dying:] After what seemed a long while, but hadn’t been, Marsh gave Paulette’s hand a warm and caring squeeze. “They’re here for him,” she said. But their heavenly visitors didn’t take him right away. They had to make room for the chaos of modern medical urgencies. To get out of the way of well-trained professionals who had dedicated their lives to holding back Heaven. Choppers are just as noisy and turbulent as we imagine them to be. One tore in over the hills and shattered every bit of peace Charlie otherwise could have lost himself into. In an instant the Med-Evac team was all over him. In the midst of that blatant orchestrated chaos Paulette fought to find her peace, and to hold him inside it. “Hang on, buddy,” techs kept telling him. “Don’t go leaving us now. You just hang in there.” But they didn’t understand, Paulette thought. It was his time. The chopper made a horrible racket carrying him off. Marsh, Paulette, and Ailana held their peace as its winds whipped their world into a froth. Harve’s face twisted with something that might conceivably have been rage. Then, all of a sudden, the birds sang, as though someone had given them a cue. “So that’s what it’s like,” Marsha said, very softly. “The afterlife. “My God, it’s so beautiful.

Darkness crept through. Shadows pried at doors, teased dull edges of recollections that never quite took hold. Memories that would have shriveled under the blinding sun of daylight. And reason.

Decades after little Colleen’s death, my sister Kathy still loves her daughter dearly. Colleen was born with cerebral palsy. She died in Kath’s arms in a rocking chair at the age of six. They were listening to a music box that looked very much like a smiling pink bunny. The opening quote in this book, “I will love you forever, but I’ll only miss you for the rest of my life,” is from Kath’s nightly prayers to her child. Colleen couldn’t really talk or walk very well, but loved untying my mother’s tennis shoes and then laughing. When Mom died decades later we sent her off in tennis shoes so Colleen would have something to untie in Heaven. In the meantime, Dad had probably been taking really good care of her up there. He must have been aching to hug her for all of her six years on earth. Mom’s spirit comes back to play with great grandchildren she’d never met or had a chance to love while she was still – I almost said “among the living.” In my family, though, the dead don’t always stay that way. You can be among the living without technically being alive. Mom comes back to play, but Dad shows up only in emergencies. They are both watching over their loved ones. “The Mourning After” is dedicated to all those we have had the joy of loving before they’ve slipped away to the other side. It then celebrates the joy of re-unions.

Forgiveness doesn’t make one person better, or the other guy smaller. Forgiving is just letting go. It’s turning back toward being what we really are.

Harvey wanted to dive into his ugliness; he intentionally reached for those long hours of soul desolation. He waited. He paced, ready to face down whatever was to come. Paulette’s, though, busted loose uninvited, catching her completely off guard when she was already hurting, feeling crumbled, and vulnerable. When all she really wanted was some quiet gentle feelings for a change. A few flowers. Some sunshine. A way out of all that inner torment for even just a moment. Had she had brought only nastiness out of her childhood? Hadn’t there been anything sweet she could remember instead? As she wandered back to her cabin, searching for even a single fond memory, light faded everywhere around her. Aw, c’mon, she thought. Everyone had some happy childhood memories. She had to have at least a couple. How about the coloring? Children enjoy coloring; how about that? She’d spent hours and days on her art. It was as close as she could remember to having her Mamma stand over her with anything even remotely resembling approval. Her books and comics could be tales of Jesus, but coloring books had to be Old Testament because “No child’s impure hand could touch a crayon to the sweet beautiful face of our beloved Lord and savior Christ Jesus.” So the little girl had scrunched down over Daniel in the lion’s den. Samson screaming in rage, pain, and terror as they blinded him with daggers and torches. The redder she made the flowing wounds of a man of God shot full of arrows, the richer the flames around those three men being burned in an iron box, the longer Mamma let her stay out of that closet. - From “The Gardens of Ailana

[Hurricane] Andrew tore trees apart; drove their shrieking limbs past our walls. All around us, it shoved huge deciduous behemoths flat to the earth, or tore them out by the roots. "I have never been able to say “No” to wonder. Wherever God stood naked, I wanted to crawl into the middle and gawk. Plus, I’d already lost everything I had built or wanted to live for when we’d left San Diego, and my marriage had become a long, aching death. I had nothing left. I had to touch God again at all costs.... "... I ripped open the door, then had to shove my full weight into closing it behind me. Slamming and bucking against harsh unseen walls, waging war for every step, I crushed both hands into the railing, fought my way downstairs, past a pool already choked with roofing and with life torn apart. I bucked and strained my way out onto the street, deeper into the dark, vile heart of a hurricane. Gnashing hard into the storm, I leaned into winds that pummeled and slammed me about like a machete. "Inching and lunging across the intersection, where all but one streetlight had crashed to the pavement, I crushed my way through as that last light sparked and whipped overhead. Winds like that can drive a grain of rice through a concrete wall, so I wrenched a stop sign out of a tree and held it before me as a shield, slamming my way backward through an intersection of shattered glass and metal, out onto a golf course, where I screeched Hallelujahs no one could hear. "In that open field, that raging, shrieking fury slammed and wrenched the sign into my chest. For the first time in a long time, "I thanked God and prayed for survival. "I fought my way back home. The sign heaved at my face, sliced my hands open, and blasted away into the night. "There was no one left there but me, God, and His mighty, undeniable power." - From "Entertaining Naked People

I keep being told that my writing is getting better and better. - Now, at first I am thrilled by that, but then I think, Isn't everybody's? Do some authors grow cozy with their own style, and stay there? I think of writing fiction as an art form. As such, it's a constant exploration of new and developing ideas. If any of my books were much like my others, I don't think I'd even bother to write them.

I miss you so much in these wee morning hours, when the depth of the night sets my spirit free. When the forest is dark, and there doesn’t have to be anything in the world but the beauty I pull out of it. I miss you throughout the day, as I come across glories and wonders that could easily overwhelm me, but just dull because you’re not here to enjoy them.

In that moment Paulette stepped outside anything that had ever hurt her before. Harve needed her more than she needed herself. But she had nothing to say. Nothing to offer him. She came up empty. “I may not have shot any of those babies in safety seats, but I took out my share o’ guys in a country I started thinking we had no right bein’ in. I could tell myself they’d signed up for it, knowing they might not go home, but that just didn’t cut it after a while.” … … “Oh, they were scumbags, alright. Other guys in my unit’d be ready to just level the kids too, cause they were getting in our way, but I said, Wait. Let me try goin’ in first. Let me come at ’em from the rear. “Other times I just lost myself in the righteous glory of cluster bombing the hell outa those bastards. “And for that one moment, in all the cheering and explosions it’s like all was right with the world. It was John Phillip Sousa at Disneyland. “But then you wake up a little. You just snuffed out future generations. Maybe bad guys can have good kids if you let ’em. We’ll never know now.” He was coming close to crying. “And then you see all those pieces; kid parts lying everywhere. “And their little faces. “If they even still had faces. “Once you finish throwing up, and then toss back a few at camp pub, your next job is to find something inside you that you can bury that under. “And then … what? Just go on living?” - From “The Gardens of Ailana

One thing an early-on writer has to learn, is to be comfortable with and responsive to critique. When five people in a group tell you this chapter sucks; don’t snap back at them with, “Sure, but it gets better in another 6 or 7 chapters!” Listen. – Thank them. – Consider. They can look from a fresh perspective, and catch things that you might be too close to see. But, you will also learn along the way that not everyone in a group of relative amateurs themselves, is going to catch everything, and there will be a few who seem to never understand much of anything. Some will always want paragraphs chopped down to explosive missiles of passion, while others are more used to long composite paragraphs that I myself find impossible to wade through. You may, once you have hit your full stride and power, feel comfortable telling a few of them, “Look. This isn’t a diner. I don’t take orders: ‘I’m gluten intolerant; he can’t do salt; she’s allergic to peanuts ...’ “If what I offer is a salad bar, then No; I am not going to fry you up a cheesesteak!

Paulette awoke with an ache in her heart, a grinding in her gut. If there really was a God, why would He have let anyone put a child through that? … She had survived, but at what cost? She was an itinerant professor, living in her head, not her heart. She had broken away, but abandoned her sister; hadn’t contacted her family in years. Paulette wondered what she was looking for in these weekend workshops. Absolution wasn’t on the curriculum. What could she possibly hope to accomplish? To be a healer you need to connect with people. You need to touch, and let yourself be touched. And not just with your hands. Watching these nurses, she envied them their friendships. Here were real buddies truly caring about each other, taking jabs, sharing private jokes and fears. She’d never had that. Even witnessing it from across a room, or a yard, only made her feel that much more lonely. She got along with people well enough. Agreed with whatever they said, watched their pets, helped them move from one apartment to another. But no one really knew her. Paulette had never been flush with self-confidence. People took that as humility, but humility isn’t painful and crippling. She hadn’t yet learned that humble and self-destructive aren’t the same thing at all. They’re not even on the same team. And now here she was at a workshop for healers. Had she come here to heal; or to be healed? It was one of those warm, charming days that write poems about themselves, and then settle these very softly into your mind. Paulette sensed what felt like a rain-laced breeze stirring her soul; sodden, and yet beautiful; laden with both the dismal, and the promising. - From “The Gardens of Ailana”, a fiction largely based around adults still traumatized by having been abused as children, in the name of their parents’ religion.

Paulette had never been flush with self-confidence. People took that as humility, but humility isn’t painful and crippling. She hadn’t yet learned that humble and self-destructive aren’t the same thing at all. They’re not even on the same team. - From "The Gardens of Ailana" handbook for healers & mystics

Since “The Twitler Years”, hate, fear, and loathing had been in the air they all breathed. It coursed through their blood and came between friends. The very first emotion they learned to read and respond to at birth was the dread in their mom’s eyes for what she’d brought them into. - From “The Soul Hides in Shadows” by Edward Fahey

Sometimes I wish I could feel more pain so I could touch that much more beauty.

That dark-spirited billionaire in the White House had befouled the planet’s atmosphere. Even now, decades later, he still passed you on the streets in the deadened or angry eyes of your neighbors. He had worked his way into your system, curdling your blood, and your dinners. Like some rancid, dripping sickness hanging from every wall, and in every doorway. He formed the background to everything. He darkened your thoughts and your heart. He was a cancer eating through your last hope. - From “The Soul Hides in Shadows” by Edward Fahey

That time had come to be known as “The Great Madness of ’16”. A miracle of unholiness when the people rose up, demanding their own annihilation in the most unconscionable ways possible, each stage more degrading than its predecessor. “The Great Madness of ’16”; when the voices of ignorance roared. - From “The Soul Hides in Shadows” by Edward Fahey

The back of the church was raised up from the ground. Tossed in among its supports were what looked like moldering bones. My heart ached so much for these poor souls, neglected even after death, I turned away to head back, but managed only a few burdened steps. I drew up abruptly and froze. An old, worn marker, standing off by itself, grabbed at my heart. It was Edgar Alan Poe. He fit in so perfectly there. Maybe I did, too. His sorrow and pain ate through me as I stood, head lowered. Can’t even death let us step away from our darkness? It was like he was scratching a warning into the dirt with his finger, and meant it specifically for me. Don’t wait around for sermons to wash you clean, he seemed to say, for death or drugs to close your eyes. God won’t come roaring in with fresh troops to drive away the darkness we’ve walled our own souls up in. He didn’t put us there; we’ll have to dig ourselves out. I looked at my own life as I stood there, feeling buried alive, like some of his characters. But unlike his characters I had caught a flash of hope.

There comes a hush between darkness and day. Like expectation of a caress. A murmur of silence. Tree crests peeked down at Paulette through slowly lifting fog. Bark felt around for its texture again. Morning gathered and drifted through mere hints; through vague hopeful nuances of ‘Just maybe’. - From "The Gardens of Ailana" handbook for healers & mystics

There seems to be a thin, resilient, and self-healing shell between one's spiritual awareness and that dense web of confusion and often distress that is life in the world of humans. You might poke through now and then, only to find it closing up immediately behind you again. Leaving you wondering if you had really just seen that. Or had it only been your imagination? - Edward Fahey