The Orchardist Quotes

“And that was the point of children, thought Caroline Meddey: to bind us to the earth and to the present, to distract us from death.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“She revered solitude, but only because there was the possibility of breaking it. Of communing at last with another.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“When he was a boy he was happy when the men arrived, and in a way wanted them to remain forever--but he was also anxious that they had arrived, that he was no longer alone. The sorrow came from those two feelings--the happiness of company, the anxiety of interrupted solitude. That was what he had felt, he thought, and what to some extent he still felt.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“She could strive for perfection only in certain, few things; beyond that, it was important only to be tidy.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“He regarded the world—objects right in front of his face—as if from a great distance. For when he moved on the earth he also moved in other realms. In certain seasons, in certain shades, memories alighted on him like sharp-taloned birds: a head turning in the foliage, lantern light flaring in a room.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“The night has made up its mind. It’s we who are too slow, who move in the wake of events already decided for us, who refuse, who are too weak or too simple, or are perhaps, strictly, unable to understand”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“And that was the point of children, thought Caroline Middey: to bind us to the earth and to the present, to distract us from death. A distraction dressed as a blessing: but dressed so well, and so truly, that it became a blessing. Or maybe it was the other way around: a blessing first, before a distraction.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“A place to show her children: and you belong to the earth, and the earth is hard.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“How like the orchard she was. Because of her slowness and the attitude in which she held herself -seemingly deferent, quiet-it appeared even a harsh word would smite her. But it would not. She was like an egg encased in iron. She was the dream of the place that bore her, and she did not even know it.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“He had pulled out of that grief, eventually – out from under the suffocating weight of it. Suffering had formed him: made him silent and deliberate, thoughtful: deep.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“He did not expect her to be happy—how that word lost meaning as the years progressed—but he only wished her to be unafraid, and able to experience small joys.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“It was only too bad that to gossip and support mean ideas was easier and more enjoyable, really, than to keep quiet and know in silence that the true story can never be told, articulated in a way that will tell the whole truth. Even if it is better to be quiet, quietness will never reign. People talked, even the best of them.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“Things might get very bad, things might be worse than she ever imagined, but the stars existed, and that was something.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“The sorrow came from those two feelings—the happiness of company, the anxiety of interrupted solitude.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“The man said that a portion of track just up into the mountain pass had been damaged by a rockslide early that morning, and they had shut down the whole system for maybe as long as the rest of the summer. The man shook his head, incredulous, disgusted, but also delighted in the way that people are often delighted by bad news, or the opportunity to discuss bad news that does not immediately affect them.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“They were blessed, said Jane; they were going to give birth to themselves. It would be themselves they gave birth to, only better. That was why she and Della must work so hard to protect them, their children. In protecting the children Jane and Della would also (Jane explained this over and over again) save themselves—”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“She was haunted by the possibility that she had missed her chance for happiness. But she had not missed her chance, she told herself, for her chance would not let her get away so easily. Each morning she was fortified by hope: the future loomed.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“Not only a few times, but every time he did not give in to his urge to go look for her, he resented the moment that came in its place. Even if the moment was beautiful and was something he valued, and made him who he was. He could not help but also long for that other life in which he lived with Della, even if she abused him.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“We do not belong to ourselves alone, she wanted to say, but there was no one to speak to.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“Where some women wanted mere privacy, she yearned for complete solitude that verged on the violent; solitude that forced you constantly back upon yourself, even when you did not want it anymore.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“They had heard that many, many miles away, but not so many as before they started, on the other side of the mountains, was the ocean. Constant rain. Greenness. Maybe that's where they were going, thought Talmadge. Sometimes--but how could he think this? how could a child think this of his mother?--he thought she was leading them to their deaths. Their mother was considered odd by the other women at the mining camp; he knew this, he knew how they talked about her. But there was nothing really wrong with her he though (forgetting the judgement of a moment before); it was just that she wanted different things than those women did. That was what set them and his mother apart. Where some women wanted mere privacy, she yearned for complete solitude that verged on the violent; solitude that forced you constantly back upon yourself; even when you did not want it anymore. But she wanted it nonetheless. From the time she was a small girl, she wanted to be alone. The sound of other people's voiced grated on her: to travel to town, to interact with others who were not Taldmadge or Talmadge's father or sister, was torture to her: it subtracted days from her life. And so they walked: to find a place that would absorb and annihilate her, a place to be her home, and the home for her children. A place to show her children, you belong to the earth, and the earth is hard.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“But she did not know where the doubt, the fear, began. It had always been there, but she had sought to rearrange it within herself; and in the constant rearrangement was transformation.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“When one is young, he thought, one thinks that one will never know oneself. But the knowledge comes later; if not all, then some. An important amount.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“It was as if she had grown, changed, overnight; her hair was different, her eyes; the shade and texture of her flesh, her limbs; and, most disconcerting and delightful of all, she was beginning to speak. She increasingly talked back to him when he murmured to her, and he understood that she was becoming what she was destined to become, when he first held her in the open air of the world: her own person, her own independent and particular self. He marveled at it all. And what would she grow up to be like? What was inside her, already formed, that would draw forth with time, and what was it that she most needed him to teach her? Would she be amenable to his help, his advice in worldly matters? And what advice did he have to give her?”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“And that was the point of children, thought Caroline Middey: to bind us to the earth and to the present, to distract us from death. A distraction dressed as a blessing: but dressed so well, and so truly, that it became a blessing. Or maybe it was the other way around: a blessing first, before a distraction. ...But she did not think any more about it because at her back, suddenly, the child woke from her nap, and she rose at once to go to her. (p. 124)”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“The forest would absorb her, she thought, it would keep her until the future showed itself.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“The other chief love- and how similar it was to science, and how different- was reading. As soon as she realized the figures on the page meant something- could be strung together as words, and then sentences, and then paragraphs- she was covetous of the whole system. It seemed a new universe to her. And it was. Everything opened up. Some stories were meant to inform, and others were meant to entertain. And then other stories were separate from those- this the young teacher did not tell her, it was something Angelene figured out on her own, the first year, when a man visited and read them a poem out of a tome of poems- that seemed crafted to relay some secret, and even more than that, some secret about herself. Angelene was mesmerized. What was available for her to know? What secrets did the world hold? Which secrets would be revealed to her through the soil, and which through words?”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“She craved it for some reason- she would not look at it directly- that sense of despair.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“How lovely, the portraitist kept saying. How lovely.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

“Objects too at times, after all, like the landscape, held the potential for meaning- she took out the first object now- and were able to comfort.”
― Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist