The Four Winds Quotes
"Elsa Wolcott had spent years in enforced solitude, reading fictional adventures and imagining other lives."
"On bad days, she knew that she had always been an outsider in her own family."
"There was a pain that came with constant disapproval; a sense of having lost something unnamed, unknown."
"But now, as she sat in the parlor, in her favorite chair, she closed the book in her lap and thought about it."
"Young by most accounts. An age when men drank bathtub gin and drove recklessly."
"By twenty-five, the die was cast. An unmarried woman was a spinster."
"Prettiness. Elsa knew that was the crux of it. She was not an attractive woman."
"It didn’t take a genius to look down the road of Elsa’s life and see her future."
"And what would she have to show for her life? How would her time on this earth be marked?"
"She imagined herself living somewhere else. In her own home. She could hear children’s laughter."
"Her father stopped. "Elsa," he said. "Why are you still up?""
""Papa." At first she said it too softly to be heard, so she tried again, actually raising her voice."
""I will be twenty-five tomorrow," Elsa said."
""A writer?" Papa said. "Have you some hidden talent of which we are all unaware?""
"Elsa knew it was over. This was not a battle she could win."
"She wished she’d never read The Age of Innocence. What good came from all this unexpressed longing?"
"Elsa climbed into bed and lost herself in the scandalous story, felt a frightening, sinful need to touch herself."
"If she didn’t do something soon, something drastic, her future would look no different from her present."
"Elsa stepped up onto the boardwalk that ran alongside Main Street."
""I’ll take it," Elsa said. Had she put a slightly rude emphasis on I’ll?"
"Elsa almost pulled away; that was how stunned she was."
""Come with me, Els." He renamed her, just like that, turned her into a different woman."
""Wowza," he said. It sounded as if there were a smile in his voice."
""Well, I reckon I’d best get you home, Els. My dad will tan my hide if I’m not on the tractor at dawn.""
"Elsa heard the gate creak open and snap shut in the quiet."
"She knew now what she hadn’t known before: she would do anything, suffer anything, to be loved."
"In the years since the Great War, patriotism ran high in Dalhart."
"Elsa kept her head down and pretended nothing had changed."
"The bruise on her jaw had faded. No one—not even her sisters—had remarked upon it."
""Elsa!" her father yelled up the stairs. "It’s time to go. Don’t make us late.""
"The Dalhart Grange Hall had been decorated in layers of red, white, and blue bunting."
"She made her way through the collection of parked cars."
""Meet me tonight," he said. "Midnight. At the old Steward barn.""
"Elsa lay in bed, breathing shallowly, as the house quieted."
"But what did she know of such things? A mother didn’t explain sex to her daughter until the wedding day."
""I will speak to Father Michael promptly. No need to draw this out.""
""We need electricity in town. That’s the ticket," Mr. Hurst added."
"He could remember every word he’d said to her, few as they were, and every nuance of expression on his face as he spoke."
""I want to be brave," she said, almost too softly to be heard."
"I want to be told I could fly high, be anything and go anywhere."
"How could I tell him that the land is killing him?"
"You always say this is America, where anything is possible."
"It's already so goddamn hot I can't breathe."
"Life is tough, Loreda. You need to be tougher or it will turn you inside out."
"This damnable wind and drought will kill them. And us."
"The love, it comes in the beginning of her life and at the end of yours."
"I'm sorry. I know the words don't matter, may be worse than nothing."
"I could never do anything right in their eyes, either."
"I'm sorry. The words don't matter, may be worse than nothing."
"You leave when you just can't stand your life where it is."
"I reckon you leave when you just can't stand your life where it is."
"Your children, Elsa. Remember Loreda... Anthony..."
"He promised to teach me to drive when I turned thirteen."
"They’ll be sorry. Those jobs are a pipe dream."
"In that one look, she saw a bit of his childhood slip away."
"Who was going to rescue them when she failed?"
"More than a thousand miles to California, and what would they find there?"
"They’re like a plant that can only grow in one place."
"Be brave, or pretend to be. It’s all the same."
"We can be a club, like the Boy Scouts, only we’re explorers."
"This wasn’t her home and the people who’d lived here weren’t her family."
"They carry disease and trouble to our schools."
"The friends we have made promise plenty of work for all when the cotton is ready to pick."
"Not every day, but most days she worked twelve hours for fifty cents."
"It’s work, Elsa. We take it where we can, when we can."
"You may be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen."
"In minutes there would be nothing to show that a baby had been buried here."
"If you aren’t running away these days, you aren’t paying attention."
"You could count on a man like that, she thought. A man who didn’t just spout ideas, but fought for them, took beatings for them, and stayed in place."
"Daddy had given Loreda words; it was actions that mattered."
"Loreda wanted to be like Jack, not like her faithless father. She wanted to stand for something."
"People get scared when they lose their jobs and they tend to blame outsiders."
"It isn’t, technically. But this is a capitalist country, run by big-money interests."
"They sent flyers across America, telling workers to come. And they came, too many of them."
"I reckon so. But more than anything, I’m mad."
"Seeing sunshine through clean glass, golden, pure as the gaze of God, could lift one's spirit."
"The sight of them helping others when they themselves had lost everything made her proud."
"Ever wonder why his policies help almost all workers except farmworkers? I want to make it better."
"We believe in hard work and a fair chance. Not one for all and all for one."
"There’s no why to trust. It either is or isn’t."
"Beneath the fierceness, she sensed pain. Not loneliness, exactly, but an aloneness she recognized."
"What in the world was more restorative than a child’s love?"
"We all know how important beauty is in finding a man."
"We don’t need to learn about what old rich men did more than one hundred years ago. The world is falling apart now."
"Words and ideas can be deadly. You be careful what you say and to whom."
"Elsa glimpsed Jean’s fear, and it matched her own."
"The idea of asking for credit when there were no savings to draw upon felt to Elsa like begging."
"I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare go anywhere."
"I’m sorry, ma’am. No state relief for anyone who is capable of picking cotton."
"Remember that house I stopped at in Dalhart, on the day we left for California?"
"I hear you’re making trouble, demanding gin."
"We fight for our American dream, that it will be possible again."