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Top 20 Margaret Renkl Quotes (2026 Update)

Margaret Renkl Quote: “When I didn’t die, however, and then didn’t die some more, I came one day to understand: I wasn’t dying; I was grieving. I wasn’t dying. Not yet.”

1. “When I didn’t die, however, and then didn’t die some more, I came one day to understand: I wasn’t dying; I was grieving. I wasn’t dying. Not yet.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “The light catches in the bare branches of the maple and clothes it in a fleeting dream of autumn, all pink and auburn and gold. The cardinal perched near the top of the tree bursts into radiance, into flame, and for that moment nothing matters at all – not the still soil nor the clattering branches nor the way this redbird will fall to the ground in time, a cold stone, and I too will grow cold, and all my line.”

2. “The light catches in the bare branches of the maple and clothes it in a fleeting dream of autumn, all pink and auburn and gold. The cardinal perched near the top of the tree bursts into radiance, into flame, and for that moment nothing matters at all – not the still soil nor the clattering branches nor the way this redbird will fall to the ground in time, a cold stone, and I too will grow cold, and all my line.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Blessed are the parents whose final words on leaving – the house, the car, the least consequential phone call – are always “I love you.” They will leave behind children who are lost and still found, broken and, somehow, still whole.”

3. “Blessed are the parents whose final words on leaving – the house, the car, the least consequential phone call – are always “I love you.” They will leave behind children who are lost and still found, broken and, somehow, still whole.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Back on the caregiving roller coaster, I struggled to remember the lesson I had just learned so painfully with Mom: the end of caregiving isn’t freedom. The end of caregiving is grief.”

4. “Back on the caregiving roller coaster, I struggled to remember the lesson I had just learned so painfully with Mom: the end of caregiving isn’t freedom. The end of caregiving is grief.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “I like the idea of mist as much as I enjoy the lovely mist itself. Aren’t transitions always marked by tumult and confusion? How comforting it would be to say, as a matter of unremarkable fact, “I’m wandering in the mist just now. It will blow off in a bit.”

5. “I like the idea of mist as much as I enjoy the lovely mist itself. Aren’t transitions always marked by tumult and confusion? How comforting it would be to say, as a matter of unremarkable fact, “I’m wandering in the mist just now. It will blow off in a bit.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Turn your face up to the sky. Listen. The world is trembling into possibility. The world is reminding us that this is what the world does best. New life. Rebirth. The greenness that rises out of ashes.”

6. “Turn your face up to the sky. Listen. The world is trembling into possibility. The world is reminding us that this is what the world does best. New life. Rebirth. The greenness that rises out of ashes.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “For us, too, change is almost always a source of dislocation, but if nature teaches us anything, it’s that nothing prevents the passage of time, the turning of the seasons.”

7. “For us, too, change is almost always a source of dislocation, but if nature teaches us anything, it’s that nothing prevents the passage of time, the turning of the seasons.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “The gift of the equinox, the day when there are as many hours of light as of darkness, is the gift of Janus, of looking ahead even as we look behind.”

8. “The gift of the equinox, the day when there are as many hours of light as of darkness, is the gift of Janus, of looking ahead even as we look behind.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “A person who is not afraid of looking like a fool gets to do a lot more dancing.”

9. “A person who is not afraid of looking like a fool gets to do a lot more dancing.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “December reminds us that the membrane between life and death is permeable, an endless back and forth that makes something of everything, no matter how small, no matter how transitory. To be impermanent is only one part of life. There will always be a resurrection.”

10. “December reminds us that the membrane between life and death is permeable, an endless back and forth that makes something of everything, no matter how small, no matter how transitory. To be impermanent is only one part of life. There will always be a resurrection.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “I never deadhead the coneflowers, though, for there are few things more beautiful than the sight of a goldfinch still wearing his summer finery and riding a coneflower tossing in the autumn wind.”

11. “I never deadhead the coneflowers, though, for there are few things more beautiful than the sight of a goldfinch still wearing his summer finery and riding a coneflower tossing in the autumn wind.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Nothing is harder to love about the natural world – or the human world – than its ceaseless brutality.”

12. “Nothing is harder to love about the natural world – or the human world – than its ceaseless brutality.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Because sometimes the only cure for homesickness is to enlarge the definition of home.”

13. “Because sometimes the only cure for homesickness is to enlarge the definition of home.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “World, world, forgive our ignorance and our foolish fears. Absolve us of our anger and our error. In your boundless gift for renewal, disregard our undeserving. For no reason but the hope that one day we will know the beauty of unloved things, accept our unuttered thanks.”

14. “World, world, forgive our ignorance and our foolish fears. Absolve us of our anger and our error. In your boundless gift for renewal, disregard our undeserving. For no reason but the hope that one day we will know the beauty of unloved things, accept our unuttered thanks.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “The light that renders a crow incandescent in the afternoon is the same light that only minutes later tenders the gift of twilight, when colors fade and all the world becomes a crow.”

15. “The light that renders a crow incandescent in the afternoon is the same light that only minutes later tenders the gift of twilight, when colors fade and all the world becomes a crow.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Pull up a weed from the wet soil of the drenched garden and smell the rich life the earthworm has left behind. Just a whiff of it will flood you with a feeling of well-being. The microbes in freshly turned soil stimulate serotonin production, working on the human brain the same way antidepressants do.”

16. “Pull up a weed from the wet soil of the drenched garden and smell the rich life the earthworm has left behind. Just a whiff of it will flood you with a feeling of well-being. The microbes in freshly turned soil stimulate serotonin production, working on the human brain the same way antidepressants do.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Nothing in nature exists as a metaphor, but human beings are reckless metaphor makers anyway, and only a fool could fail to find the lesson here. The cold roots of the sleeping trees along the streambed are even now taking in water. One day soon that water will rise and spring into the world in a rush of tight green leaves poised to unfurl. Everything that waits is also preparing itself to move.”

17. “Nothing in nature exists as a metaphor, but human beings are reckless metaphor makers anyway, and only a fool could fail to find the lesson here. The cold roots of the sleeping trees along the streambed are even now taking in water. One day soon that water will rise and spring into the world in a rush of tight green leaves poised to unfurl. Everything that waits is also preparing itself to move.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “I want nothing to change. I want everything to change.”

18. “I want nothing to change. I want everything to change.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “We are storytelling animals, and for us that indeterminate space is uncomfortable. We turn the unfinished story over and over in our minds, imagining alternate scenarios. We try to convince ourselves that only the happy ending is possible, that any tragedies we fail to witness are tragedies that never happened. That kind of ignorance is a gift we give ourselves because we are made so uneasy by uncertainty. But uncertainty is the true gift.”

19. “We are storytelling animals, and for us that indeterminate space is uncomfortable. We turn the unfinished story over and over in our minds, imagining alternate scenarios. We try to convince ourselves that only the happy ending is possible, that any tragedies we fail to witness are tragedies that never happened. That kind of ignorance is a gift we give ourselves because we are made so uneasy by uncertainty. But uncertainty is the true gift.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “I like to see books spread out on a table like a banquet. Every time I pass by, I’m tempted to sit down and begin something delicious, or to pick up where I left off the last time I played hooky from work, the work that colonizes most of the rooms in our own house.”

20. “I like to see books spread out on a table like a banquet. Every time I pass by, I’m tempted to sit down and begin something delicious, or to pick up where I left off the last time I played hooky from work, the work that colonizes most of the rooms in our own house.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “I can’t change Americans’ love affair with poison, and I can’t solve the problems of climate change, but I can plant a garden.”

21. “I can’t change Americans’ love affair with poison, and I can’t solve the problems of climate change, but I can plant a garden.”

— Margaret Renkl

Margaret Renkl Quote: “Instantly I was thinking about those Post-it notes stuck all over my house. How had I allowed myself to become so busy? How long had it been since I’d spent a day in the sun, eating sandwiches from a cooler and watching water ripple across the surface of a lake? Why do I so often behave as though there will be unlimited days to sit quietly with my own beloveds, listening to birdsong and wind in the pines?”

22. “Instantly I was thinking about those Post-it notes stuck all over my house. How had I allowed myself to become so busy? How long had it been since I’d spent a day in the sun, eating sandwiches from a cooler and watching water ripple across the surface of a lake? Why do I so often behave as though there will be unlimited days to sit quietly with my own beloveds, listening to birdsong and wind in the pines?”

— Margaret Renkl

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