The Hounding Quotes

“We went out when we weren’t supposed to, we were too free, and this—all of this—is our punishment. It has nothing to do with the idea of us becoming dogs, and everything to do with the fact of us being girls.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“Girls—normal human girls—people could contend with; they were weak and small. And dogs too could be trained. But girls who became dogs, or who let the world believe they were dogs, were either powerful or mad: both monstrous possibilities.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“Happiness was frail and flimsy: a petal, a whisper. Hardship was constant. It was muscular and loud. Only fools forgot this vital fact, her face explained. Only fools failed to let it guide their every waking thought and deed.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“Lies could be told with such liberating ease—they tasted better on the tongue than hard facts.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“little tasks were the foot soldiers in the ongoing battle against despair.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“Some of them were God-fearing, but their main god, the one at whose temple they worshipped most frequently, was violence. When they weren’t committing violent acts—brawling in the alehouse or beating their wives—violence seeped into their lives in other ways. It inflected their language. They often spoke of wounding and punishing, even killing. They wore their strength proudly, thumping fists on tables and slapping each other on the back.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“thought. They turned a strong man weak. They made a good man penitent.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“In the shallow water, circling thick lily-pads, he found eyes and fidgeting forms - tadpoles turning into frogs. Some had stubby tails, others were dappled brown and green, caught in the border between different bodies.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“For a moment, she wanted nothing but to think quietly about these women, and the many other women like them, and those unlike them too. She thought about what they went through each day: the great, gruelling trial of being a woman in a world governed by men. How painful it was, and how humiliating . To be forced to hold your dead friend aloft because it was thought that you, in your smallness and stupidity, might not realise that this could be your fate. It made her tense and pale with rage.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“For a moment, she wanted nothing but to think quietly about these women, and the many other women like them, and those unlike them too. She thought about what they went through each day: the great, gruelling trial of being a woman in a world governed by men. How painful it was, and how humiliating . To be forced to hold you dead friend aloft because it was thought that you, in your smallness and stupidity, might not realise that this could be your fate. It made her tense and pale with rage.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“We went out when we weren't supposed to, we were too free, and this—all of this—is our punishment. It has nothing to do with the idea of us becoming dogs, and everything to do with the fact of us being girls. Girls—normal human girls—people could contend with; they were weak and small.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“Girls — normal human girls — people could contend with; they were weak and small. And dogs too could be trained. But girls who became dogs, or who let the world believe they were dogs, were either powerful or mad: both monstrous possibilities.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding

“The feeling was of triumph, and brilliance, and total, blissful possession. It felt like ruling and serving simultaneously.”
― Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding