Lone Women Quotes
"There are two kinds of people in this world: those who live with shame, and those who die from it."
"You kept too many secrets. Look what it cost you."
"It's startling what people will do when they are desperate."
"The reward for sacrifice is simply more sacrifices."
"My whole life. Everything that still matters."
"I tried. But that thing weighs more than my damn horse."
"It seems foolish, but when they rode through the shadow, Adelaide shivered."
"A funny thing happens when a man thinks he has a woman’s company all to himself. He may show a face to her that he would keep hidden if there were even one more person around."
"If Mattie T. Cramer could do it, then Adelaide could do it."
"The only constants about trains were that they were loud and they were late."
"My boys don’t need to hear from cynics! And neither do I!"
"This land is trying to kill every single one of us, let me tell you. And we keep each other alive."
"When people need one another, they find ways to be good."
"Queer folk, that’s what they say about the Henrys."
"Difficulties are to be overcome, not indulged."
"I wasn’t blind until I turned six years old."
"I didn’t know I was blind until I turned six years old."
"One day, on the walk to school, I led him to an old well. Then I pushed him in."
"She lay down but found it impossible to sleep."
"The only thought that brought her back was imagining Mr. Olsen arriving at her cabin door, meaning to sell her the Mudges’ goods and finding Adelaide dead by her own hand."
"She entered the next room and, mercifully, the door shut tight and its lock still worked."
"My father, as you know, was a sort of gentleman farmer in-shire; and I, by his express desire, succeeded him in the same quiet occupation."
"I must have been thinking of someone else entirely."
"She just couldn’t imagine giving any more of herself. That wasn’t why she’d come here. She had a burden that was hers to shoulder."
"Outside the corral, Grace and Sam were on a horse and Finn, still half asleep, held it by the reins."
"Adelaide felt her tenderness like a shawl she wanted to drape across his shoulders."
"She remembered the bone-deep exhaustion on Mr. Olsen’s face the morning after pulling the wagon out of the coulee."
"And there, in the corner where the great chair had once sat upright, she saw it, out of the steamer trunk, its back to her, the mighty body pressed against the cabin wall."
"The scales felt like sandpaper to the touch, rougher, so even grappling with it could make a person, nearly any person, bleed. Except Adelaide."
"Nature had designed Adelaide for this very purpose. Why else would a girl as strong as her be born into this family, if she wasn’t meant to yoke the thing they’d been punished with?"
"If she couldn’t save her own mother and father, what did it matter if she let a man she hardly knew die?"
"Secrets, once revealed, are no longer secrets, no matter how tightly you try to seal them away."
"Matthew would have to bring a lot of men if he hoped to hurt the creature. She doubted there were enough in all of Montana."
"The horror had a familiarity that reminded her of home."
"She considered killing him. His rifle right there in a corner. These plains could erase a rider."
"Every man and woman out here, every child and every beast, was well acquainted with desperation."
"A home is never finished, it's only saved from decay."
"You had to go up to the counter to make your order, and the line there continued to grow as more people left the opera house."
"It wasn’t funny of course, but why did it seem so funny right then?"
"What a pleasure not to have to look over one’s shoulder for the law, or the relatives of some past victim."
"I will make it right for all who we have wronged."
"That’s how you know I’m using the good stuff."
"My brother… he hadn’t been well since our family died."
"Is it possible Adelaide hadn’t been to town even once during the daytime in all these months?"
"I can tell you that every stitch of fabric from our private residence and from the opera house will be taken down the street and deposited with the Sterlings from now on."
"The promise of this great country is that all of us may find our fortunes through the blessing of freedom this nation promises."
"Let them know how much it would mean to you if one of our own were to enjoy their business. After all, that’s how we thrive, by looking out for one another."
"A lifetime of being treated like an outsider may make a person yearn to finally be let in."
"It would be nice to imagine Adelaide storming out of the store, climbing onto Obadiah, and galloping out of town, catching up with Bertie and Fiona and never looking back."
"Support local business, not some scoundrel with a warehouse out in the state of Washington."
"That’s the honest answer. You saw me at dinner last night. I’m afraid I wasn’t good company."
"Was it just you and your parents? All of them close?"
"Why don’t we stop playing now? No more self-delusion."
"A literal lifetime raised apart from the community around them."
"But you don’t know what it is to do this work."
"Our small community is no stranger to hardship."
"We didn’t speak, but the wind had much to say."
"I know," she said. "I thought the same when Rocky Boy spoke of such things."
"He explained that his people had come to Montana because of a prophecy."
"A family secret...it's a sound that never stops playing in one's ear."
"The resemblance is here," she said. She patted her heart.
"I’ll go now," Adelaide said softly. "Thank you."
"Was that really sheep milk?" she asked. "Yes," Francisco said. "And no," Carlota added.
"What we gave you," Carlota began. "It will help you when you get there."
"Help you see more clearly," Carlota said. "See what you must do."
"History is simple," Mrs. Reed said. "The past is complicated."
"What does that have to do with anything?" "Your mother doesn’t want you to be happy?"
"It wasn’t there until you hugged me," Sam said. He touched Grace’s face gently. "Did you get cut up?"
"This isn’t for you," Sam said. "It’s for me. If you shoot me dead, I want to be looking at something that makes me happy."
"My mother’s dead. Killed." "My father, too." "Dead?" "Killed."
"I knew what was happening in the barn," Adelaide shouted. "I knew and I stayed away."
"I wished you all were dead," she muttered. "I hoped you’d kill each other. And I would finally be free of my family."
"You needed a sister," Adelaide said. "But instead, you got me."
"I’m sorry," Adelaide whispered. "Don’t know if that’s worth much. But I’m sorry I wasn’t better to you. I’m sorry."