Middlegrade Quotes

“Verily, Allah enjoins justice, and the doing of good to others; and givinglike kindred; and forbids indecency, and manifest evil, and wrongfultransgression. (The Holy Quran, an-Nahl 16:91)This verse sets forth three gradations of doing good.The first is the doing of good in return for good.This is the lowest gradation and even an average personcan easily acquire this gradation that he should do goodto those who do good to him.The second gradation is a little more difficult thanthe first, and that is to take the initiative in doinggood out of pure benevolence. This is the middlegrade. Most people act benevolently towards thepoor, but there is a hidden deficiency in benevolence,that the person exercising benevolence is consciousof it and desires gratitude or prayer in return for hisbenevolence. If on any occasion the other personshould turn against him, he considers him ungrateful.On occasion he reminds him of his benevolence orputs some heavy burden upon him.The third grade of doing good is graciousness asbetween kindred. God Almighty directs that in thisgrade there should be no idea of benevolence or anydesire for gratitude, but good should be done out ofsuch eager sympathy as, for instance, a mother doesgood to her child. This is the highest grade of doinggood which cannot be exceeded. But God Almightyhas conditioned all these grades of doing good withtheir appropriate time and place. The verse citedabove clearly indicates that if these virtues are notexercised in their proper places they would becomevices.”

“The three now faced the moving wall. Trapped, like the last fries in a box with a hungry kid ready to pounce. They had no way to escape.”

“Being a humble person, she gave her pie shop a humble name—PIE.”

“She wanted to make sure she studied all the manuals thoroughly, but she had to admit that part of her hesitation was the unsettling length of the list of things that could go wrong if she mishandled the pressure.”

“Dad has shamelessly played the Mom card. Against which there is no defense.”

“I turn back to the Archers, who don’t look like the same species as us. Do they even sweat, these people?”

“Alice wondered if her mother was aware that she wasn’t the only one in town who’d come down with a bad case of Blueberry Fever.”

“To my faithful readers, because a book is like a pie—the only thing more satisfying than cooking up the story is knowing that somebody might be out there eating it up with a spoon.”

“Whatever you do, don’t make it worse by trying to come up with some flimsy excuse for why you were in the ventilation shaft, Lina told herself.”

“Polly had a gift for baking pies, and she poured her heart and soul into every one she made.”