Quotes from Tracy Chevalier

She felt so confused by the gap between what she thought and what was expected of her that she could not speak. Perhaps it was better not to, until she was more sure of what she wanted to say. That way her words could not be twisted and flung back at her. Silence was a powerful tool at Meeting, clearing the way to God. Perhaps now it would allow Honor to be heard.

Back home there was a slot in which my life was meant to fit. Then it was taken away and it felt as if there was no place for me. I thought it better to go and start somewhere new. So I thought.' 'That's a very American notion, leaving problems behind and movin' on', Belle said. 'If you thought that, maybe you're not so English after all (...)

That is what we women are trained for, to give to others, to make others comfortable whatever we feel for ourselves. It can be tiring, thankless to be so generous all of the time. I would like to be a bell ringer. Just to go up in the tower and for an hour concentrate on nothing but the sound of the bells and my place in them. That to me would be heaven. – Chapter 22

Jem gazed up into the proper deep blue he knew well from Dorsetshire, coupled with the vivid green of the roadside grass and shrubs, and found himself smiling at these colors that were so natural and yet shouted louder than any London ribbon or dress.

Mein ganzes Leben war ich diese Straßen langgegangen, aber nie war mir so sehr aufgefallen, dass ich dabei meinem Zuhause den Rücken zukehrte. Doch als ich das Ende der Straße erreichte und außer Sichtweise meiner Familie abbog, fiel es mir leichter, ruhig auszuschreiten und mich umzusehen.'' 19

God placed the fossils there when He created the rocks, to test our faith, he responded at last. As He is clearly testing yours Miss Philpot. It is my faith in you that is being tested, I thought.

I feel like a bird who has been wounded with an arrow and now cannot fly.

We had not meant our choice to cut us off from our past, but it did. We had only the present and the future to think of in Lyme.

She'd had a terrible time with his brothers' wives : seeing her with them was like watching someone pet a cat against its fur.

I did not sleep well that night. I was not used to having the power to affect someone's life so and did not easily carry its weight, as a man might have done.

Evet,yaÅŸam bir aldatmaca. EÄŸer yeteri kadar uzun yaÅŸarsan, hiç bir ÅŸeyin ÅŸa??rt?c? olmad???n? öÄŸreniyorsun.

in the clear brown were little flecks of black like pieces of bark

I am Elizabeth Philpot, I declard, and I collect fossil fish.

Besides, no one can keep me away from my fish. Thank you, by the way, for the crate of fish you left for me. They are a delight. Come, let us go down to the sea.

She was from an era when daughters were dutiful and deferential to their mothers, at least until they married and deferred to their husbands – not that Mrs. Speedwell had ever deferred much to hers.

She felt the strangeness of recognizing a place and yet not knowing it, of having a similar tone as if nothing had changed, yet everything had changed and aged, including Violet herself.

Father always said fishing is about not fishing as much as fishing." Indeed. And about not thinking. We all need to do things that take us out of ourselves.

Was it so very obvious that I was not married? Of course it was. For one thing, I had no husband with me, looking after and indulging me. But there was something else about married women that I noticed, their solid smugness at not having to worry about the course of their future. Married women were set like jelly in a mold, whereas spinsters like me were formless and unpredictable.

At that time turbans had not yet arrived in Lyme- though I can report now that Margaret pushed the fashion onto Lyme's women, and within a few years, turbans were a common sight up and down Broad Street. I am not sure they complement empire-line gowns as well as other hats, and I believe some laughed behind their hands at the sight, but isn't fashion meant to entertain?

He could not tell all of the California pines apart, the gray pine from the coulter, the bushop from the knobcone and the Monterey.

Quakers never haggled, but set what they felt was a fair price for materials and labour. Each product had what was thought of as its own intrinsic merit, be it a carrot or a horseshoe or a quilt, and that did not change simply because many people needed a horseshoe.

Everyone's just passin' through Ohio to get to somewhere else

With every task she asked for instructions so that she would not offend Abigail with different ways of doing things that might imply her hostess was in the wrong. Abigail was the sort of woman who thought that way.

When Gilda appeared—out of