# Quote — Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

> She watched him with cool green eyes and smiled innocently. The eyes were alert with wonder, curiosity, and — perhaps something else — but she could apparently not see that he was in pain. There was something about her eyes that caused him to notice nothing else for several seconds. But then he noticed that the head of Mrs. Grales slept soundly on the other shoulder while Rachel smiled. It seemed a young shy smile that hoped for friendship. He tried again.
>
> "Listen, is anyone else alive? Get —"
>
> Melodious and solemn came her answer: "listen is anyone else alive — " She savored the words. She enunciated them distinctly. She smiled over them Her lips reframed them when her voice was done with them. It was more than reflexive imitation, he decided. She was trying to communicate something. By the repetition, she was trying to convey the idea: I am somehow like you.
>
> But she had only just now been born.
>
> And you're somehow different, too, Zerchi noticed with a trace of awe.

- Author: [Walter M. Miller Jr.](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr.md)
- Book: [A Canticle for Leibowitz](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller_Jr.#Fiat_Voluntas_Tua) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/she-watched-him

## More from this book

> From the lightning and the tempest,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the scourge of the earthquake,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From plague, famine, and war,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the place of ground zero,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the rain of the cobalt,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the rain of the strontium,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the fall of the cesium,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the curse of the Fallout,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the begetting of monsters,
>
> O Lord, deliver us.
>
> From the curse of the Misborn,
>
> O Lord deliver us.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/from-the-lightning.md)

> The Poet could not remember ever fearing death, but he had often suspected Providence of plotting the worst for him as to the manner of his dying when the time came to go. He had expected to rot away. Slowly and not very fragrantly. Some poetic insight had warned him that he would surely die a blubbering leprous lump, cravenly penitential but impenitent. Never had he anticipated anything so blunt and final as a bullet in the stomach, and with not even an audience at hand to hear his dying quips. The last thing they had heard him say when they shot him was: "Oof!" — his testament for posterity. Ooof!

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/the-poet-could.md)

> But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon men. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/walter-m-miller-jr/a-canticle-for-leibowitz/but-neither-infinite.md)