quotes by Jane Hamilton

"It is books that are a key to the wide world; if you can't do anything else, read all that you can."
— Jane Hamilton

"She read books quickly and compulsively, paperback after paperback, as if she might drift away without the anchor of the printed page."
— Jane Hamilton

"There were so many miracles at work: that a blossom might become a peach, that a bee could make honey in its thorax, that rain might someday fall. I thought then about the seasons changing, and in the gray of night I could almost will myself to see the azure sky, the gold of the maple leaves, the crimson of the ripe apples, the hoarfrost on the grass."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"It was impossible not to admire him, not to want to do something to contain that kind of beauty- drink him, ingest him, sneak into his shirt and hide for the rest of one's natural life."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"In May, when the grass was so green it hurt to look at it, the air so overpoweringly sweet you had to go in and turn on the television just to dull your senses- that's when Claire knew it was time to look for the asparagus in the pastures. If it rained she wondered if she should check our secret places for morels. In June, when the strawberries ripened, we made hay and the girls rode on top of the wagon. I was ever mindful of the boy who had fallen off and broken his neck. In July, the pink raspberries, all in brambles in the woods and growing up our front porch, turned black and tart. In August, the sour apples were the coming thing. In September there were the crippled-up pears in the old orchard. In October, we picked the pumpkin and popcorn. And all winter, when there was snow, we lived for the wild trip down the slopes on the toboggan."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"I'd forgotten how your blood flows toward a person when they move, so that all at once, you know what the pull of gravity feels like. And you know that this is something strong and important, something that you need for life, this woman moving through the room."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"I feel like I don't have all the ingredients a person is supposed to have."
— Jane Hamilton (The Book of Ruth)

""I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident. I hadn't learned that it can happen so gradually you don't lose your stomach or hurt yourself in the landing. You don't necessarily sense the motion. I've found it takes at least two and generally three things to alter the course of a life: You slip around the truth once, and then again, and one more time, and there you are, feeling, for a moment, that it was sudden, your arrival at the bottom of the heap.""
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"He wore binoculars around his neck the way librarians wear their glasses."
— Jane Hamilton

"It is books that are the key to the wide world; if you can't
do anything else, read all that you can."
— Jane Hamilton

"The last rain had come at the beginning of April and now, at the first of June, all but the hardiest mosquitoes had left their papery skins in the grass. It was already seven o'clock in the morning, long past time to close windows and doors, trap what was left of the night air slightly cooler only by virtue of the dark. The dust on the gravel had just enough energy to drift a short distance and then collapse on the flower beds. The sun had a white cast, as if shade and shadow, any flicker of nuance, had been burned out by its own fierce center. There would be no late afternoon gold, no pale early morning yellow, no flaming orange at sunset. If the plants had vocal cords they would sing their holy dirges like slaves."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"I looked up then, out the far window, and there, just within sight, the sun was going down across the river. It was dull red, no longer shining over the land, its ray brought home to roost, contained within its sphere. The sky was streaked with lavendar, a pulsing pale blue, purple and smudged pink and orange melding into one another all the way to the horizon."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"It was about forgiving. I understood that forgiveness itself was strong, durable—like strands of a web weaving around us, holding us."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

"I will hear a noise, like a fish jumping, and when I look I'll see Lizzy coming to the surface, shaking off her pink scales, finding her new arms to do the breaststroke to shore."
— Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World)

""It is books that are the key to the wide world; if you can't
do anything else, read all that you can."


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— Jane Hamilton