Best The Heretic's Daughter Quotes by Kathleen Kent

"For myself it was more than a journey away from the only home I had ever known. It was the ending of a passage from the dark fog of infancy to the sharp remembrances of childhood."

"A plague of it had swept across the settlements of Middlesex County, and with our crossing east over Blanchard’s Plain, contagion and death followed with us."

"My father had bitter memories of being blamed for bringing the pox into Billerica many years before."

"The language of field and home. He often deferred to her, which seemed remarkable, as he towered over my mother."

"He was close to seven feet tall, so it was said, and to me, being a small child, his head seemed to rest in the clouds, his face forever in shadow."

"The other thing I knew was that men feared him."

"At first glance, one might perceive a comely woman of some intelligence, not young, but neither yet old."

"But Martha Carrier was like a deep pond, the surface of which was placid enough but deeply cold to the touch and which was filled beneath the surface with sharp rocks and treacherous choke roots."

"The passage of time, and layer upon layer of misfortune, had only worked to stiffen the fabric of her being."

"She had a will, and a demeanor, as forceful as a church deacon’s."

"The first night, the house was filled with the sounds of the walls settling against the layering snow and the warm animal smells of my brothers."

"Life is surely hard, Sarah. God tests us to see if we will put our faith in Him no matter what may come."

"I approached the world with suspicion, and because I was not pretty or pliable, I was not doted upon."

"We speculated about how long the bodies would be left on the rope before public decency required them to be removed."

"Your father will be taking you and Hannah to your aunt Mary back in Billerica."

"The world, Sarah, and call it by what I feel it should be, not by what others who in their dull reveries think it is."

"Sharing secrets is the way in which women tie themselves together, for it reveals complicity and trust."

"Holding secrets shows trustworthiness and a sort of quiet defiance."

"Accept whatever comes as the will of God, no matter how harsh."

"The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul." - Psalms 19

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." - Proverbs 17:17

"I would rather have died than cry out to her."

"I am remembering what I would forget. But a man’s past is like his own shadow."

"If you turn me out without a promise of marriage, I swear I’ll tell the whole village your family is filled with whoresons."

"Your maidenhead is still intact. It would be a fine trick to pass a child through your birth canal without having had a man pass through it first."

"Speak one word of this and I will come to you some night and burn you alive in your bed."

"Remember the story of Robert Rogers and the Indians who skinned him? How they tied him to the stake after he had died? I lied. Robert Rogers was alive when they burned him."

"The history of the world is such, Sarah. To build upon the bones of those who have come before. Thus it will ever be."

"If you were to eat this, you would surely die. Not today and perhaps not tomorrow. But after four days of spitting every bit of water from your belly and your ass, you would welcome your death."

"You love your cousin and my sister and that is the natural course of things. But you also have a great love for your uncle, and he is a man not worthy of that love."

"Life is not what you have or what you can keep. It is what you can bear to lose."

"Nothing of the greater good comes without struggle and sacrifice in equal measure, be you man or woman, and in this way are we freed from tyranny."

"You cannot harvest the corn until you go into the corn."

"Men are always the last to ken what women know by sniffing the air."

"This is Devil’s work. You see how it spreads? How it crosses borders and roads like a rolling fog?"

"If not for king, then for county. If not for county, then for clan. If not for clan, then for my brother. If not for my brother, then there is naught but home."
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"It is false. The Devil is a liar. I looked upon none since I came into the room but you."

"I am saying that she is not lost to herself."

"Happy accidents come to those who have the mettle to hatch them."

"They say there is one true test for a witch. You throw ’em in the river. If they drown, their innocence is proved. If they float, they’re a witch and you take ’em out and hang ’em."

"My pleasant things in ashes lie, And them behold no more shall I. Under thy roof no guest shall sit, Nor at thy table eat a bit. No pleasant tale shall e’er be told, Nor things recounted done of old. No candle e’er shall shine in thee, Nor bridegroom’s voice e’er heard shall be. In silence ever shall thou lie . . ."

"It is in her hands and the hands of her judges."

"I am no more a witch than you. I never have been, nor am I one today."

"There is no death in remembrance. Remember me, Sarah. Remember me, and a part of me will always be with you."

"Fear was brought into the cells with the newly imprisoned like welts from a beating."

"It is easier to kill a tyrant with a sword than disassemble whole counties in the grip of superstitious dread."

"You want to see the Devil’s hand? The Devil’s hands is wrapped around my wrist."

"The voice of Tom or Father or Dr. Ames or the Reverend Dane had no deeper meaning apart from the rhythm and cadence of supplication."

"The sheriff’s daughter died and when his wife did not appear to make her rounds, I knew with a certainty that there would be no more gifts of food from her."

"The door was swung open with a murderous rattling of the keys, yet the dark mouth of the cell remained empty for a long time."

"The indigo summer skies had been swallowed up by roiling oppressive clouds, drowning the lightning before it could spark and smothering the attendant thunderclaps into hollow rumblings."

"There was something about the way in which her thin white legs were revealed from the bottom of her shift that is poignant and awful in their nakedness."

"It is a realm close to madness where what is heard and seen during the fever can never be trusted to be substantial once the sickness has been burned free."

"I wanted only to sleep and yet in the depths of night when the cold shuddering of my limbs would start and the racking coughs threatened to crack all my ribs, the time between midnight and dawn seemed to last forever."

"I told him it was you. It’s you who are my strength. You mustn’t die, Sarah, and leave me in this dark place."

"This be but a dark dream. Now you can waken and stay with the living."

"Only by tasting blood is the toddler discouraged from falling."

"I am my mother’s daughter, I am my mother’s daughter . . ."

"How could it be that all around me had remained the same when behind my eyes I still carried the images of the life of the two I had called Mother and Father?"