# Quote — Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

> Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable – which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.

- Author: [Marilynne Robinson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilynne-robinson.md)
- Book: [Gilead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilynne-robinson/gilead.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marilynne_Robinson#Gilead_(2004)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilynne-robinson/gilead/every-single-one

## More from this book

> It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilynne-robinson/gilead/it-is-worth.md)

> I can imagine Jesus befriending my grandfather, too, frying up some breakfast for him, talking things over with him, and in fact the old man did report several experiences of just that kind.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilynne-robinson/gilead/i-can-imagine.md)

> I meant to leave you a reasonably candid testament to my better self, and it seems to me now that what you must see here is just an old man struggling with the difficulty of understanding what it is he's struggling with.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/marilynne-robinson/gilead/i-meant-to-leave.md)