Tracy Chevalier > Quotes

“It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.”
― Tracy Chevalier

“He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.”
― Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring

“Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.”
― Tracy Chevalier

“We say very little, for we do not need to. We are silent together, each in her own world, knowing the other is just at her back.”
― Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures

“What do you believe, Aunt Elizabeth?'
'I believe. . . I am comfortable with reading the Bible figuratively rather than literally. For instance, I think the six days in Genesis are not literal days, but different periods of creation, so that it took many thousands --- or hundreds of thousands of years --- to create. It does not demean God; it simply gives Him more time to build this extraordinary world.'
'And the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus?'
'They are creatures from long, long ago. They remind us that the world is changing. Of course it is. I can see it change when there are landslips at Lyme that alter the shoreline. It changes when there are earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and floods. And why shouldn't it?”
― Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures

“I didn't move. I've learned from years of experience that dogs and falcons and ladies come back to you if you stay where you are.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn

“So many (too many) books are published every year, and it seems everyone is writing a book. Perhaps we should all be reading more and writing less!”
― Tracy Chevalier

“I had walked along that street all my life, but had never been so aware that my back was to my home”
― Tracy Chevalier, Girl With a Pearl Earring

“Era un pensiero doloroso ma la verità lo è sovente.”
― Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures

“I have spent my life waiting for something to happen,’ she said. ‘And I have come to understand that nothing will. Or it already has, and I blinked during that moment and it's gone. I don't know which is worse — to have missed it or to know there is nothing to miss.’


Falling Angels”
― Tracy Chevalier

“There is no need to fear," he said, "for you are here with me.”
― Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures

“I never said I didn't want to marry. It just didn't happen-Iam not the sort of lady a man chooses to marry, for I am too plain and too serious. Now I am reconciled to being on my own.”
― Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures

“Warp threads are thicker than the weft, and made of a coarser wool as well. I think of them as like wives. Their work is not obvious - all you can see are the ridges they make under the colorful weft threads. But if they weren't there, there would be no tapestry. Georges would unravel without me.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn