The Last Runaway Quotes

“I have a bed and enough to eat and kind people about me. God is still with me. For these things I am grateful and have no reason to complain”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“It is less distracting in the silence,” she said. “Sustained silence allows one truly to listen to what is deep inside. We call it waiting in expectation.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“What made him most attractive was that he was attracted to her. Another’s interest can be a powerful stimulant. She could feel his eyes on her as an almost physical pressure.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“It was no surprise that her sewing was so uneven, for to make even stiches the seamstress herself had to be steady. Abigail tended to hunch over her patchwork, her fingers and thread a snarl, and sew a few stiches before abandoning it to look down the road towards the houses near the general store, or to get up for a drink of water.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Perhaps thee will best understand what Abigail is like if I tell thee that when she quilts she prefers to stitch in the ditch, hiding her poor stitches in the seams between the blocks.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“They do not practise the art of conversation in quite the way the English do, but are straightforward to the point of bluntness.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“A firefly landed on Honor’s sleeve and began walking up her shoulder, its tail still blinking. As she craned her neck to look down at it, Jack chuckled. “Don’t be scared. It’s just a lightning bug.” He placed his finger in its path. Honor tried not to think about the pressure of his touch. When the firefly crawled onto his finger, he lifted it up and let it fly off, signaling its escape route with sparks of light.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Back home there was a slot in which my life was meant to fit. Then it was taken away and it felt as if there was no place for me. I thought it better to go and start somewhere new. So I thought.' 'That's a very American notion, leaving problems behind and movin' on', Belle said. 'If you thought that, maybe you're not so English after all (...)”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Compliments in America can take an almost aggressive form, as if the speaker needs to defend her own shortcomings rather that simply to rejoice in another's ability.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Appliqué is very popular here. To my eye it has a facile look about it, as if the maker has not thought hard but simply cut out whatever shape has taken her fancy and sewn it on to a bit of cloth. Piecing together patchwork, on the other hand, requires more consideration and more accuracy; that is why I like it, though some say it is too cold and geometrical.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“She felt so confused by the gap between what she thought and what was expected of her that she could not speak. Perhaps it was better not to, until she was more sure of what she wanted to say. That way her words could not be twisted and flung back at her. Silence was a powerful tool at Meeting, clearing the way to God. Perhaps now it would allow Honor to be heard.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Whatever's happened to you during the day, as long as you got a nice pillowcase for your head at night, you'll be all right. You got yourself a place to lay your head, Honor Haymaker. Things are lookin' up.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“In general, Quakers did not give gifts, as material possessions should not be given heightened status.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“With every task she asked for instructions so that she would not offend Abigail with different ways of doing things that might imply her hostess was in the wrong. Abigail was the sort of woman who thought that way.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“in the clear brown were little flecks of black like pieces of bark”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“The second he was gone the women began chattering like chickens at the sight of a fox.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Everyone’s just passin’ through Ohio to get to somewhere else,”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Most other front gardens when planted with flowers looked both formal and artificial. Judith Haymaker, for instance, had put in daffodil and hyacinth bulbs so that they came up in rigid rows, a sight English women would have smiled at. While plentiful, Mrs Reed's flowers had a randomness about them that reminded Honor of coming upon primroses or anemones in the woods. They were just there, as if they always had been. It took real skill to remove the gardener's hand from the garden.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Elle se sentait tellement déconcertée par la contradiction existant entre ce qu'elle pensait et ce qu'on espérait d'elle qu'elle était incapable de parler. Peut-être valait-il mieux qu'elle se taise, en attendant d'être plus sûre de ce qu'elle voulait dire. Ainsi ses paroles ne pourraient-elles être déformées et lui être renvoyées à la figure.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“making:”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“She attributed her own fine sewing to the prolonged periods of silence at Meeting; these had made her thoughts level and her hand steady, which was reflected in her even stitching.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway

“Quakers never haggled, but set what they felt was a fair price for materials and labour. Each product had what was thought of as its own intrinsic merit, be it a carrot or a horseshoe or a quilt, and that did not change simply because many people needed a horseshoe.”
― Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway