Ignassen Mather Quotes

“Treat your mind like a museum, not a warehouse”

“Mather smiles at me through it, some of his tension softening before he drops his head in a small bow. "My queen," he says in response.”

“Maybe I was supposed to hate Caroline Mathers or something because she’d been with Augustus, but I didn’t. I couldn’t see her very clearly amid all the tributes, but there didn’t seem to be much to hate. She seemed to be mostly a professional sick person, like me, which made me worry that when I died they’d have nothing to say about me except that I fought heroically, as if the only thing I’d ever done was Have Cancer.”

“While I knew him, he made me see--Poe did; made me understand that, unlike a bodily organ, the soul desires, even wills, its own continuance.It can be said to be the seat of will and desire and, even in its necrotic state, the root of evil. ... A Sunday school lesson or one of Cotton Mather's gaudy rants that helped to kindle the Salem bonfires is nearer to the truth of it than a fable by Poe, Hawthorne, or Melville. Evil's a malignancy beyond the skill and scalpel of {doctors} to heal or extirpate.”

“Marie felt a sudden urge to smash the glass, break down the door, pull down the building. She wanted to tear apart the world. Mather would have never treated a white student that badly, nor would he have shut the door in the face of a man. At that moment, she wanted Dr. Mather to disappear. She wanted every white man to disappear. She wanted to burn them all down to ash and feast on their smoke. Hateful, powerful thoughts. She wondered what those hateful, powerful thoughts could create.”

“History is the story of events, with praise or blame.”

“Our opportunities to do good are our talents.”

“The horse does abominate the camel the mighty elephant is afraid of a mouse and they say that the lion which scorneth to turn his back upon the stoutest animal will tremble at the crowing of a cock.”

“I only laugh when I don't know on what I'm laughing to.”

“We never know the journey another person has walked, so be kind to everyone.”