# Quote — Jane Smiley, The Greenlanders

> Some folk learned the nature of God, that He was merciful, having spared a husband or some cattle, that He was strict, having meted out hard punishment for small sins, that He was attentive, having sent signs of the hunger beforehand, that He was just, having sent the hunger in the first place, or having sent the whales and the teeming reindeer in the end. Some folk learned that He was to be found in the world-in the richness of the grass and the pearly beauty of the Heavens, and others learned that He could not be found in the world, for the world is always wanting, and God is completion.

- Author: [Jane Smiley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley.md)
- Book: [The Greenlanders](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-greenlanders.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jane_Smiley#The_Greenlanders_(1988)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-greenlanders/some-folk-learned

## More from this book

> My mind is like a room where the door swings free in the breeze, and many visitors come and go and stay and vanish as they will.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-greenlanders/my-mind-is-like.md)

> Some days they would talk all morning about exactly how warm Heaven might be. It could not be warm enough so that souls went naked, or could it? If souls went naked, then why all the weaving, and if there was no weaving then how did souls occupy themselves?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-greenlanders/some-days-they.md)

> Still others reflected on how quickly the food could be snatched from a man's table, or the child from a woman's breast, or the wife from a man's bedcloset, that no strength of grasp could hold these goods in place. And others remarked to themselves how sweet these goods were, in spite of that, and saw that pleasure lost in every moment is pleasure lost forever.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-greenlanders/still-others-reflected.md)