Top 90 Mark T. Sullivan Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “God giveth, and God taketh away. Sometimes in the same day.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

2. “Just dance, and smile, and let your body speak the language of love.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

3. “Pino shrugged. “Maybe he liked the sound of it. Pino Lella.” Mimo snorted. “You do live in a fantasy world.” They.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

4. “Sometimes you just have to have faith.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

5. “The distance doesn’t matter. Just think about your next step.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

6. “Maybe that’s all it takes for the future to exist, Pino thought. You must imagine it first. You must dream it first.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

7. “To be young and in love. Isn’t it remarkable that something like that can happen in the middle of a war? It says something about the inherent goodness of life, despite all the evil we’ve seen.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

8. “Forgive an old man his memories,” Pino said. “Some loves never die.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

9. “You can’t carry the world’s problems on your back. You have to find some happiness in your life, and just do your best with the rest.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

10. “You know, my young friend, I will be ninety years old next year, and life is still a constant surprise to me. We never know what will happen next, what we will see, and what important person will come into our life, or what important person we will lose. Life is change, constant change, and unless we are lucky enough to find comedy in it, change is nearly always a drama, if not a tragedy.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

11. “By opening our hearts, revealing our scars, we are made human and flawed and whole.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

12. “But after everything, and even when the skies turn scarlet and threatening, I still believe that if we are lucky enough to be alive, we must give thanks for the miracle of every moment of every day, no matter how flawed. And we must have faith in God, and in the Universe, and in a better tomorrow, even if that faith is not always deserved.” “Pino.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

13. “Isn’t it strange how life is always taking you to places and to people you’re supposed to see and meet?”

— Mark T. Sullivan

14. “How do you find happiness?” Anna paused, then said, “You start by looking right around you for the blessings you have.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

15. “The small luxuries of life are how we survive what the mind can’t fathom.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

16. “For many hours on that hill that day there was little sound save that of spring birds and insects, and a warm breeze carried the scent of fields under plow. It all made Pino realize that the earth did not know war, that nature would go on no matter what horror one man might inflict on another. Nature didn’t care a bit about men and their need to kill and conquer.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

17. “The best thing is to grieve for the people you loved and lost, and then welcome and love the new people life puts in front of you.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

18. “It all made Pino realize that the earth did not know war, that nature would go on no matter what horror one man might inflict on another. Nature didn’t care a bit about men and their need to kill and conquer.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

19. “It would be surprising if you didn’t hate me for what I’ve had to do today. A part of me hates myself. But I have orders. Winter is coming. My country is under siege. Without this food, my people will starve. So here in Italy, and in your eyes, I’m a criminal. Back home, I’ll be an unsung hero. Good. Evil. It’s all a question of perspective, is it not?”

— Mark T. Sullivan

20. “Do what I sometimes do when I get scared: imagine you’re someone else, someone who’s far braver and smarter.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

21. “Doing favors,” Leyers said. “They help wondrously over the course of a lifetime. When you have done men favors, when you look out for others so they can prosper, they owe you. With each favor, you become stronger, more supported. It is a law of nature.” “Yes?” Pino said. “Yes,” Leyers said. “You can never go wrong in this way, because there will be times when you will need a favor, and it will be right there waiting to come to the rescue. This practice has saved me more than once.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

22. “Sometimes happiness comes to us. But usually you have to seek it out.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

23. “Someone very wise once told me that by opening our hearts, revealing our scars, we are made human and flawed and whole.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

24. “Pino saw the trials of the past few weeks in a different light, and he felt excited and filled with new purpose. “You want me to guide them, Father?” Pino asked. “The three Jews?” “Three of God’s children whom he loves,” Father Re said. “Will you help them?” “Of course. Yes.” The priest put his hand on Pino’s shoulder. “I want you to understand that you will be risking your life.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

25. “By noon, Pino was sitting on the steps of La Scala where he could see the front of the Hotel Regina and the Daimler parked nearby. He was numb with grief. Gazing across the street at the statue of the great Leonardo and listening to the chatter of citizens who hurried past, he wanted to cry again. Everyone was talking about the atrocity.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

26. “You can’t be the hero all the time, Pino.” “If you say so.” “I do say so. You can’t carry the world’s problems on your back. You have to find some happiness in your life, and just do your best with the rest.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

27. “Then refind your faith in mankind in your love of Anna, and build your strength through your love of God. These are dark times, Pino, but I really do sense clouds wanting to lift and the sun wanting to rise on Italy again.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

28. “Some loves never die.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

29. “In early February 2006, I was forty-seven and at the lowest point of my life.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

30. “Life is change, constant change, and unless we are lucky enough to find comedy in it, change is nearly always a drama, if not a tragedy. But after everything, and even when the skies turn scarlet and threatening, I still believe that if we are lucky enough to be alive, we must give thanks for the miracle of every moment of every day, no matter how flawed. And we must have faith in God, and in the Universe, and in a better tomorrow, even if that faith is not always d.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

31. “You decide; then you act. You choose faith; then you walk through the door.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

32. “And then we were swept up, just like the La Scala performers say, playing con smania, with passion.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

33. “Your father is a wise man,” the cigar trader said. “Music. Wine. A cigar. The small luxuries of life are how we survive what the mind can’t fathom.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

34. “Pino was seized by something much more compelling and primal, as if Anna were not human but a spirit, a melody, a perfect instrument of love.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

35. “My first reaction was that the story of Pino Lella’s life in the last twenty-three months of the war could not possibly be true. We would have heard it before. But then I learned that Pino – pronounced pea-no – was still alive some six decades later and back in Italy after nearly thirty years in Beverly Hills and Mammoth Lakes, California.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

36. “If a bomb’s coming at you, it’s coming at you. You can’t go around worrying about it. Just go on doing what you love, and go on enjoying your life.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

37. “We have heard that, too,” the priest said. “But we can’t stop loving our fellow man, Pino, because we’re frightened. If we lose love, all is lost. We just have to get smarter.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

38. “If you stay too close to someone like Hitler, you are going to burn someday.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

39. “Pino at that moment seemed to me like a portal into a long-ago world where the ghosts of war and courage, the demons of hatred and inhumanity, and the arias of faith and love still played out within the good and decent soul who’d survived to tell the tales.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

40. “The world doesn’t work like this, he tried to tell himself. The world is not sick and evil like this.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

41. “Father Re put his hand on Pino’s shoulder. “It sounds like too much to me, too, Pino, but I’m afraid it’s not too much for God to ask of you.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

42. “The Alps had taught him not to fret and whine at difficult circumstances. It was a waste of energy.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

43. “We have ears everywhere, you know, Father. The Gestapo is like God. We hear all things.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

44. “But you are so full of love for me, it beams from you, makes me feel beautiful, which makes you beautiful to me.” “Then.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

45. “They were all fighting back, part of the growing resistance.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

46. “It’s all I really want – happiness, every day for the rest of my life. Sometimes happiness comes to us. But usually you have to seek it out.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

47. “Pino shook his head. Mimo was barely sixteen and yet a battle-hardened veteran.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

48. “Pino couldn’t help thinking that he had just had the best evening of his life at the tail end of the worst day of his life. He’d experienced every emotion possible in a span of twelve hours, from horror to grief to kissing Anna.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

49. “Leyers’s life after the war and put Pino’s questions to rest. My heartfelt thanks.”

— Mark T. Sullivan

50. “They found the Jews, bound their wrists and ankles, and threw them into Lake Maggiore, where they were machine-gunned to death.”

— Mark T. Sullivan