My Dear Hemlock Quotes

“And so, in this tidy little stalemate, your new Christian patient won’t often come across an older woman who’s offering to teach her to pray—if indeed the older Christians around her even know how.”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“We want her to feel that the role of her friends is to validate her existence: “I have friends, therefore I am.” Or even more fun: “I have no friends, therefore I am not.” This is the thought we thrust upon her whenever someone declines her invitation to dinner, whenever she catches a glimpse of two other women in deep conversation. It sounds like a stretch, but believe me, it isn’t to these overgrown kindergartners. They learned their habits of female interaction in that early age of friendship bracelets and You can’t sit here.”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“For one thing, it acknowledges that the behavior in question has been officially flagged “sin.” Nobody can hide behind “But it was only . . .” And it means that, next time, both of them are aware that the behavior in question was recently named “sin” and can be regarded as such. Calling sin “sin” is deplorably freeing to both the sinner and the sinned against.”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“Thus you have a sea of adults on the internet, earnestly defending a system that has left generations of children alone in a terrifying, limitless, formless reality. We will soon have a world run by foundlings, orphaned by the abdication of authority.”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“Is she naturally independent? Encourage her to keep distance between herself and other women, to never need them more than they need her. Strengthen her impulse to guard herself from the discomfort of anyone “meddling” in her heart’s affairs. This will eliminate the worst kind of friend (and, of course, the Enemy Himself, who is the most meddlesome of all).”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“I want to live contentedly as the Enemy’s servant, but I will complain about most of the life He gave me to live. I want children, but I don’t want to give up anything to raise them. I want close friends, but I want relationships to be easy and pain-free. I want to be disciplined, but I don’t want to discipline myself.”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“These are the ultimate conflicting desires that, if you do your job well, she must never examine and compare. You want her never to lay her desires out next to each other and ask about the logic of them. How is it possible to “love” the Enemy but to also resist His presence in her private life and innermost thoughts? To long for the “joy” of having no secrets but to keep drinking on the sly or looking at pornography in secret? To make a run for the Enemy’s “freedom” but to continually look back at the city she escaped from?”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“prayer is the Commander-in-Chief’s personal telephone number, a handwritten invitation to sit in His chamber for a meal and a chat.”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock

“I spent a refreshing weekend inhabiting a roll of packing tape during my patient’s sister’s move, making sure the end of the roll was completely invisible to the naked human eye.”
― Tilly Dillehay, My Dear Hemlock