Orphan Train Quotes
"I have learned that she can control her emotions by thinking of her chest cavity as an enormous box with a chain lock. She opens the box and stuffs in any stray unmanageable feelings, any wayward sadness or regret, and clamps it shut."
"Most people don’t have to exert so much effort to stay in character. Why should she?"
"Her own curiosity is the one thing that has kept her from going off the rails."
"It’s easier to assume that people have it out for you than to be disappointed when they don’t come through."
"She has learned not to expect anything from anybody."
"My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth…"
"As one final act of kindness toward us—or perhaps to rid themselves of the nuisance of constant worry—Da’s parents and sisters scraped together the money for ocean passage for our family of five."
"I am a burden to society, and nobody’s responsibility."
"But I am skeptical. I know all too well how it is when the beautiful visions you’ve been fed don’t match up with reality."
"My parents left Ireland in hopes of a brighter future, all of us believing we were on our way to a land of plenty. As it happened, they failed in this new land, failed in just about every way possible."
"We do not have any children and have no interest in being surrogate parents. But if you are respectful and hardworking, you will be treated fairly."
"Self-discipline is one of the most important qualities a young lady can possess."
"Goodness, child, why you have to be so mouthy?"
"You got to learn to take what people are willing to give."
"People lost everything," she mutters, gripping the back of Mary’s chair. "If we can’t feed ourselves, we can hardly afford to employ you, now, can we?"
"Remember, somebody will wear this, probably over and over until it’s worn through. A lady wants to feel pretty, no matter how much money she has."
"Like an abandoned foal that nestles against cows in the barnyard, maybe I just need to feel the warmth of belonging."
"It is a pitiful kind of childhood, to know that no one loves you or is taking care of you, to always be on the outside looking in."
"You are a good girl, Niamh. Don't let anybody tell you different."
"It takes all my energy to keep myself clean, to get up and out the door in the morning to school."
"I know too much; I have seen people at their worst, at their most desperate and selfish, and this knowledge makes me wary."
"It's hard to concentrate. I feel myself retreating to someplace deep inside."
"Mr. Grote talks to me all the time—when I’m pulling feathers off the chicken, frying potatoes on the woodstove, sitting by the fire in the living room with a child in my lap."
"Their misery only makes me more aware of my own."
"It was years before she bought herself that chain."
"They remind me of photos of soldiers returning from the Great War, hollow-eyed and bald."
"Your hair is as vivid as a Kinvara sunset, autumn leaves, the Koi goldfish in the window of that hotel in Galway."
"Flappers are big-city girls who cut their hair short and go dancing and do what they please."
"Test your limits. Learn what you can endure."
"In the end, we are all just walking each other home."
"Certain moments linger in the mind and others disappear."
"It's good to test your limits now and then, learn what the body is capable of, what you can endure."
"You can't find peace until you find all the pieces."
"These trace a never-ending path, leading away from home and circling back. When you wear this, you’ll never be far from the place you started."
"A man whose mother won’t let him lift a finger is ruined for a wife."
"The people who matter in our lives stay with us, haunting our most ordinary moments."
"You grow fearful and mistrustful. The expression of emotion does not come naturally, so you learn to fake it."
"The stark truth is that she will die sooner than later. And then professionals will descend on the house, neatly and efficiently separating the valuable from the sentimental."
"The things that matter stay with you, seep into your skin."
"I’ve viewed my life until now as a series of unrelated adaptations, from Irish Niamh to American Dorothy to the reincarnated Vivian."
"The news about Maisie sits in Molly’s stomach like a stone."
"If you’re going to steal a book, though, you should at least take the nicest one. Otherwise what’s the point?"
"I can sew, and I am quite neat. I’m good with numbers."
"I don’t understand why I need to leave, why Mrs. Murphy can’t keep me if she thinks I am so well mannered."
"We have a lot of sadness inside us, Mrs. Nielsen and I. I feel sorry for the both of us."
"For the first time in my life, the glow of other people’s approval extends to, and envelops, me."
"And though I rarely take the claddagh off, as I get older I can’t escape the realization that the only remaining piece of my blood family comes from a woman who pushed her only son and his family out to sea in a boat, knowing full well she’d probably never see them again."
"You’ve certainly paid your dues, in any case, putting in all these hours with me."
"Listen, Vivian," she says. "There’s something else I need to tell you."
"Maisie was alive. All these years, there were two of them."
"I loved the movie so much that I don’t trust myself to respond without sounding foolish."
"It is marvelous to be young on a big-city street."
"We are going to have some real fun for a change."
"It’s as if a piece of my past has come to life, and with it all the feelings I fought to keep down."
"I wonder for a moment if he’ll kiss me. I want him to."
"I can’t go through this again. I can’t give myself to someone so completely only to lose them."
"I can honestly say that I never regretted marrying him."
"I don’t want, ever again, to experience the loss of someone I love beyond reason."
"It’s not fair to expect you to take care of me."
"You’re a major pain in the ass, did you know that?"
"I’m guessing she’s not a certified foster care provider."
"So if it’s not hurting us… and it’s not hurting you…"
"No sense in confining yourself to one room when there are all these options, is there?"
"I wonder what kind of cereal I should get for Becca."
"Her eyes are wide open, searching, and when her gaze alights on Vivian’s face, it is startling in its intensity, stripped of any pretense or convention."
"For the first time since she can remember, her life is beginning to make sense."