A Girl Called Samson Quotes
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Never have words penetrated deeper or lifted me higher."
"To be a fool required a level of fantasy no one had ever indulged in me."
"I relive them in my sleep. It seems like another life, though the remnants of that life are with me still, in my flesh and in my posterity."
"I watched boys die and grown men weep. I saw cowardice reign and bravery falter."
"It is impossible to describe how it feels to have no say in one’s own life, to be at the mercy of others."
"I thought nothing could be worse than the small, painful existence I was living."
"All I know is that once the desire took root in me, it grew and grew, until to deny it would have choked the hope from my breast."
"I wanted to be a warrior like Jael, the woman who slayed a mighty general and liberated her people from the fist of oppression."
"Loss is not spread equally. I have learned that lesson well. It is a lumpy porridge and a thin gruel, and fate does not consider the suffering of a mother and say, 'Perhaps I’ll spare her this time.'"
"Freedom exists in degrees. A bird has more freedom than a horse. A dog has more freedom than a sheep."
"Our lives are so short. Very little of what you or I do will be felt in this generation or even in the next."
"It is not for ourselves that we act. It is not our lives we are building, but the lives of generations that will come."
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick: but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life."
"I am only accomplished because I try very hard at everything I do."
"I should have stayed with you and contributed another way."
"It's one hundred and fifty miles back to Uxbridge."
"Valiance is the defining quality of true greatness. Not talent. Not power. Valiance."
"I am not interested in vengeance nearly as much as preservation."
"I have not allowed myself to want anything too much."
"I am a good soldier. I have never complained or failed to do my duty."
"But have I not performed every duty, completed every task, and been a good soldier, regardless of that fact?"
"I do not wish to be coddled or protected. That is not why I am here."
"You are not in any position to make demands," he ground out.
"I am exactly the same as I was last week and the week before."
"That is not what I meant. You are exactly the same as in your letters."
"Can you not simply put it out of your mind? I expect no special treatment."
"My right? I have so few rights, sir, but being handled like a woman, in these circumstances, is not one that I want."
"No one has ever protected me, General. I have only ever had myself."
"You have no idea of the depravity and ruthlessness of men. Especially the men who profit from war."
"I have served with all my heart. And I will continue to do so if you will allow it."
"We don’t keep women out of war because they are less than."
"Men don’t bring their treasure onto the battlefield. They protect it."
"I am not treasured. So I do not need protecting."
"I would rather the artist emphasize strength and character."
"I have not known a moment’s peace since I realized you are not Robert Shurtliff."
"The way I’ve done in a thousand maneuvers—and brought the butt of my musket against his head with a firm crack."
"That doesn’t make it better," he roared. "Goddammit!"
"My entire brigade will leave for Philadelphia first thing in the morning," General Paterson informed Joe.
"What do you need me to do first, General?" I asked.
"You’re going to have a black eye," the general commented as we left Robinson’s house an hour later.
"I do not like what was insinuated by Private Dornan," he said, his voice low and hard.
"I have survived this far because I’ve had your protection for much of it."
"You are so dismissive of your own life, so unbothered by your own safety."
"You are a grown woman. How does no one see it?" he whispered.
"Of course he was the last to come home. He had promised to stay to the end."
"But though my heart raced, my legs could not, and I went to the willow tree instead, needing a moment with Elizabeth before I greeted our beloved John."
"She is beneath the willow tree with Mother," Ruthie informed him and everyone else within a mile.
""Ahh." Relief resonated in the sigh. "That sounds like Samson.""
""I will never like her as much as I loved Mother," Hannah warned. "But she will do.""
""You may leave now, Grippy," I insisted, splitting another log and throwing it aside. "I am so very glad I have entertained you.""
""I have always been tall, Father. You are just enormous, so you never noticed.""
""I am not running away!" I insisted. "I am not running away from him.""
""I can’t breathe," he said. "Looking at you . . . I can’t breathe.""
""They don’t expect you to be lovely or wise or well-spoken," he says. "They expect a Samson and you are a Deborah.""
""Samson himself could not knock it down," I confessed. "Samson herself.""
""Once you told me that you loved in different amounts. Big piles and little piles," he said."
""Should is a funny thing. People talk an awful lot about the way things should be and not the way things are. You’re a woman, and that’s a reality you can’t argue out of.""
""It is not for the man who has everything and wants more that we fight, but for the man who has nothing.""
""You mean soldier Bonny?" "Yes. I mean soldier Bonny.""
""I am proud. But I am also deeply . . . ashamed.""