The Hired Girl Quotes

“But I think the most important thing those books gave me was a kind of faith. My books promised me that life wasn’t just made up of workaday tasks and prosaic things. The world is bigger and more colorful and more important than that.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I think I would rather have a cat than a sweetheart, after all. They are less trouble, and even the handsomest sweetheart is sadly lacking in fur.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“...I sometimes wonder if every living thing doesn't need kind words as much as sunshine and water.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“If I had books, if I could scrape together an education, I’d have a future, whether any man ever asked me to marry him or not.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“When I behold the ocean, I know that the world isn't just the grind of small tasks and small thoughts.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“When I behold the ocean, I know that the world isn't just the grind of small tasks and small thoughts. The world is wide and wild and grand. Someday I will sail my little bark into the great ocean of life, braving the winds and the tide. And while the waves may dwarf me, they will not belittle me, because I will be the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I quite lost myself, gazing at this work of art. . . It thrilled me, that sculpture. For one thing, it reminded me that in my new life, I may have other such experiences. I needn't always be an ignorant girl. The world will offer itself to me like a chalice brimming with immortal wine, and I will quaff from it.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“Not having any books makes me feel empty and strained and pathetic.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I think I’d like to be beautiful and heartless for a while, just to see what it’s like.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“Even though there were too many feelings, it strikes me that having them all at once, all tangled together, is one of the most interesting things that's ever happened to me.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“and I sometimes wonder if every living thing doesn’t need kind words as much as sunshine and water.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“You realize you are not alone when you write, and you start to write for the person who will read your words. I think that's a bad thing, but I'm not sure, because I do think of being an author someday, and authors have to commune with their readers.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“And yet, if she wasn’t pretty, she didn’t know it. She spoke and walked and moved her hands as if she were bewitchingly pretty. And for some reason, it was hard to take your eyes off her. I guess a novel would have said it was the play of her features. She was lively; she was animated; her lips curved with mischief, and her small eyes sparkled. I wonder if my features ever play. I bet they don”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I'd rather be impetuous than placid any day.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“In real life, you eat the cinnamon toast, even if your heart is burning.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I knew that reading that book would take me into another world — the real world, not the ordinary world of washing the dishes and mopping the floor. It would be like what Keats said about gazing through a magic casement into faery lands forlorn.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“When I behold the ocean, I know that the world isn’t just the grind of small tasks and small thoughts. The world is wide and wild and grand. Someday I will sail my little bark into the great ocean of life, braving the winds and the tide. And while the waves may dwarf me, they will not belittle me, because I will be the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I think I would rather have a cat than a sweetheart, after all. They are less trouble, and even the handsomest sweetheart is sadly lacking in fur.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“Being proud belongs in novels. In real life, you eat the cinnamon toast, even if your heart is burning.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“Father Horst says that God loves to grant mercy and forgiveness, but it seems to me that God must be getting awfully tired of me and my problems.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I understood then that it wasn’t the libretto that told the story of the opera. It was the music, the way it yearned and swelled — the suspense and depth and mystery of those sounds. At that moment, I knew I loved Grand Opera. I felt those notes in the very fibers of my soul.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“sometimes wonder if every living thing doesn’t need kind words as much as sunshine and water.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I read these words, and I think of how hopeful I was when the day began — and how lacking in hope I am now. It seems to me I have two choices: to accept the way things are, or to strike.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“There’s something about Father that weakens you. It’s the choked-down anger inside him. It’s like stagnant water, heavy and murky and sickening. Whenever I have words with Father, I feel poisoned, even two or three days after.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“Oh, why can't life be as glorious as the opera? Of course, in real life people fall in love and get consumption and die, but it isn't the same.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I believe ladies should vote and be doctors and maybe even be President, but they should stay tidy and not perspire. Most”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“All three sons believed they had the right ring, but there was no proof they were right. But all three rings were precious and beautiful, because they came from the father, and the father loved all three sons.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl

“I have always thought that if something dreadful happened, I would be very brave, but when someone has a needle next to your eye, it’s different.”
― Laura Amy Schlitz, The Hired Girl