Girl With A Pearl Earring Quotes
"Strangers would think I was calm. I did not cry as a baby."
"I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur."
"I always laid vegetables out in a circle, each with its own section like a slice of pie."
"The colors fight when they are side by side, sir."
"That money goes to masters in need, as we are now."
"It was one thing to do this for a blind man, though. Quite another for a man with a painter's eyes."
"It will keep the family in bread. And a bit of cheese. That’s not so little."
"I walked away from our house, carrying my things tied up in an apron."
"The morning was still cool, the sky a flat grey-white pulled close over Delft like a sheet."
"I asked my father then if every Dutch city looked like that, but he did not know."
"No one asked where I was going or called out kind words."
"I had never been so aware that my back was to my home."
"I could not imagine sleeping in the room with the painting."
"My father’s sockets widened as if he still had eyes and was looking at the painting again."
"I always remembered it better than the others, even those I saw grow from the first layer of underpaint to the final highlights."
"That’s right, girl. You keep your thoughts to yourself here."
"The master painted me once, you know. Painted me pouring milk."
"I was careful to sit with my back to the Crucifixion scene."
"There were long scratches up and down her arm—she must have been bothering the house cat."
"The thought of me covered with his robe, unable to see, and him looking at me all the while, made me feel faint."
"He makes plenty of changes. He doesn’t paint just what he sees, but what will suit."
"What is an image, sir? It is not a word I know."
"I felt as if I were being tricked. Whatever I answered would be wrong."
"I was always ashamed afterwards that I had turned my back on my own sister."
"I had two families now, and they must not mix."
"I wanted him to think I could follow what he said."
"I knew he was right because I could see it in his painting of the woman, and also what I remembered of the painting of Delft."
"The thought of my family being quarantined filled me with dread."
"You can’t do anything for them and you have to save yourself. You’re a clever girl, you can work that out."
"No one may have remarked on my good housekeeping before, but everyone noticed how careless I was now."
"I tried to speak to another soldier on a barrier at a different street. Though friendlier, he too could tell me nothing about my family."
"Shame on you," I snapped, "for seeking to take advantage of those in misery."
"Thank you," I said after a long pause. I wondered what I would do if he did find out something.
"It is your sister, Agnes," he said softly. "She is very ill."
"God has punished us for taking for granted our good fortune," she said. "We must not forget that."
"Don’t worry, Father," I whispered to him, "you aren’t losing me."
"You must know that he’s painting you to satisfy van Ruijven. Van Ruijven’s interest in you has made your master protective of you."
"I will paint you as I first saw you, Griet. Just you."
"It’s not the painting that is Catholic or Protestant, but the people who look at it, and what they expect to see."
"I had not thought I would learn something from a maid."
"Don’t worry, girl. We’ll take care of this. You keep your head down and go about your work, and not a word to anyone."
"That will be all, Griet. There is some bone for you to grind upstairs."
"The women in his paintings—he traps them in his world. You can get lost there."
"It was just of me, of my head and shoulders, with no tables or curtains, no windows or powder-brushes to soften and distract."
"Cleanliness is not as important as you thought back when you were a maid, eh?"
"I had always feared that he would appear again one day with his oily smile and groping hands."
"For a long time I thought I might still matter to him."
"I admitted to myself that he had always cared more for the painting of me than for me."
"With a baby in my arms I stopped walking round the eight-pointed star in the square."
"I no longer thought of pearls and fur, nor longed to see one of his paintings."
"For a brief moment I wondered if Catharina was going to give me a painting too, to settle her debt with Pieter."
"I wondered what would happen to her, what would happen to them all."
"The holes were long healed now. All that was left of them were tiny buds of hard flesh."
"I felt faint and closed my eyes, touching the back of the chair lightly with my fingers to steady myself."
"I could not wear the earrings anyway—a butcher’s wife did not wear such things, no more than a maid did."